Lawmakers in Mississippi are the first to approve a bill that allows citizens and businesses to challenge laws that conflict with their religious beliefs, while opponents fear that it would permit discrimination against same-sex couples.

Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant is the most recent governor to sign a religious freedom bill following failed attempts introduced in Arizona and Kansas. Eunice Rho, advocacy and policy counsel with the ACLU, gave the Los Angeles Times an example of healthcare workers who could use the law to defend their decision to deny fertility treatments to a lesbian couple because it would interfere with their religious beliefs.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer recently vetoed the expansion of a religious freedom proposal that would have similarly allowed business owners to deny services to same-sex couples as long as they assert their religious beliefs. The Anti-Defamation League told MSNBC that the bill could potentially protect businesses that discriminate for “any religious reason whatsoever.”

“It was a pragmatic decision and a sign of where we are in raw political terms,” DePaul professor Gary Cestaro said in regard to Brewer’s veto. “We’ve decided as a country, rightly so, that businesses do not have a right to discriminate a whole class of people in the name of religious freedom.”

Meanwhile, the stalled bill in Kansas grants public and private employees, on the basis of religious freedom, the right to deny services to same-sex couples including unemployment benefits and foster care. The American Religious Freedom Program helped craft the bill in Kansas, and their executive director told MSNBC that the bill’s “core purpose is to protect clergy, faith communities, individuals from being compelled by law or government to participate in a wedding ceremony.”

According to the Kansas City Star, after the Kansas House approved the bill Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley of Topeka said, “The Kansas Legislature should never advocate discrimination of any kind based on a perceived notion of religious freedom.”

Senate President Susan Wagle also condemned the House’s decision and claimed that Senate members “don’t condone discrimination,” the Starreported. With fewer than half of 32 Senate Republicans supporting the bill and virtually no support from Democrats, the bill never made it to the Senate floor.

But according to the Star, a state Senate committee plans to conduct hearings to discuss religious freedom.

“If these bills are enacted, the best thing to do is to educate myself and others on businesses that choose to have that policy,” DePaul Residence Director and Kansas resident Travis Whisler said.

Other states including Ohio, Indiana, Georgia, Maine, South Dakota, Tennessee and Idaho had similar bills introduced and defeated recently.

Addressing the general rise of these religious freedom bills, DePaul student Ashley Valentin said there needs to be “a better way to address these issues without bipartisanship, especially in regards to human rights.”