The rapid expansion of gay rights and LGBT acceptance in the United States is a remarkable story, and one that's still unfolding. If you think you know how it ends, you don't. As federal courts and state and local governments have opened the door to same-sex marriage, for example, state legislatures in Republican-controlled capitals have been responding with measures to limit gay rights, quash same-sex marriage, and take away local control over LGBT anti-discrimination policies.

The "religious freedom" laws in Indiana and Arkansas are the most famous of the recent state measures to curb gay rights. But Indianapolis and Little Rock are hardly alone. In Texas, for example, Republican state legislators have introduced at least 20 anti-LGBT bills in the current session — more than any other state, according to The Texas Observer.

As gay rights march forward in America, religious conservatives are taking a stand (principled or bigoted, depending on your point of view). Big Business, a second pillar of the Republican coalition, is taking a stand, too, however, and that's where things get interesting. More than 45 years after the Stonewall Riots in New York City's Greenwich Village heralded the dawn of the modern gay-rights movement, the biggest and most effective champion of equal treatment of gays and lesbians is probably the business community. That's not to say that gay-rights groups aren't organizing and advocating and applying pressure where they can, but their efforts are a tough sell in the parts of the country waging the counteroffensive against gay rights.

In Indiana, for example, Gov. Mike Pence (R) probably wasn't too concerned about objections from the Human Rights Campaign to the "religious freedom" law he signed earlier this month. But when giant corporations like Apple and Subaru, sports franchises like the NCAA and NASCAR, and the Indiana Chamber of Commerce criticized the law, other states and large municipalities enacted travel bans, and several large employers threatened to cancel expansion plans in Indiana, Pence and the GOP-controled legislature took note, amending the law to include protections against LGBT discrimination.