On Thursday, Indiana governor Mike Pence signed into law the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and from the reaction of the media and various celebrities you would’ve thought that anti-gay Jim Crow laws had just been enacted in the Hoosier state.

On Saturday an estimated 3000 people protested in Indianapolis against the RFRA, waving rainbow flags and chanting “No hate in our state! Whose state? Our state!” CNN headlines referenced the “Indiana law that allows biz to reject gays.” A hysterical guest on Al Sharpton’s little-watched MSNBC program likened Mike Pence to Jim Crow and George Wallace (never mind that Wallace was a Democrat).

Businesses with corporate connections to Indiana predictably began shaking in their boots. Angie’s List halted their building project in Indianapolis, its chief executive Bill Oesterle stating that “Angie’s List is open to all and discriminates against none and we are hugely disappointed in what this bill represents.” San Francisco-based Salesforce.com Inc. has cancelled all programs requiring travel to Indiana. And the NCAA, faced with next week’s Final Four basketball games already scheduled in Indianapolis, designated themselves as watchdogs at the event, “. . . to assure student-athletes competing in, and visitors attending, next week’s Men’s Final Four in Indianapolis are not impacted negatively by this bill,” in the words of NCAA President Mark Emmert.

And then there are the celebrities.