In Kansas a legislator who clearly misunderstand the entire history of US Civil Rights law and what religious liberty and freedom of conscience really protect has proposed a bill making it legal for folks to discriminate against gays, even if another law or court says they can't.

Let's go over this again.  One of the justifications for Jim Crow laws was that the discriminators had a right to act on their prejudicial beliefs, often deeply held and sometimes religiously held.  So, a restaurant owner, for instance, could deny service to black people because making him serve black people violated his freedom of conscience.  

The United States of America rejected that line of argument.  The entire point of non-discrimination laws is to create a public sphere were everyone is treated farily and equitably and accomodated by his or her fellow citizens.  That is what it means to live in a pluralistic democracy.

Where the law is headed is to the same place that all religions teach.  Even if a person believes that homosexuality is a sin, as a business owner, employer, etc. they must treat all gay people with kindness and fairness and the same way they treat all other customers or employees.  Just because you do business with someone, provide a service to someone, employ someone, does not mean that you are endorsing all aspects of their identity, belief, and behaviour.

Now, if these sorts of laws catch on for a while (they will ultimately be ruled unconstitutional), they in effect create something like a new Jim Crow -- a part of the country where a group of minority citizens is denied full equality before the law and equal treatment by society at large.