Much of the media attention and public comment surrounding the "religious exceptions" focused on what should have been a non-issue: whether religious officials and entities were sufficiently protected from liability in case they refused to perform religious marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples and refused to make their facilities and services available for ceremonies solemnizing same-sex marriages. The bill as originally introduced by the Governor seemed to adequately provide for these exemptions in straightforward language, and mirrored or even went beyond the minimum that would probably be required by the Free Exercise of Religion requirements of the federal and state constitutions. However, various Republican Senators held out for more, seeking to ensure that local as well as state government would be bound by the exceptions, and, in some cases, apparently seeking to more broadly exempt religious and religiously-affiliated institutions from having to provide recognition of same-sex marriages in contexts beyond marriage ceremonies. The exemption language in the final bill was convoluted and not ideally clear, but ultimately appeared to track the existing exemptions contained in the state's Human Rights Law. Perhaps this is in the nature of legislative compromise, as it left the Republicans stating that they had achieved a broader religious exemption than originally contemplated in the Governor's bill, while the Governor and marriage equality proponents were left proclaiming that the final language did not "cross the line" to an inappropriately broad exemption.