It means it is a stepping stone.
All I can say is that if we ever reach a point where such a bill could become law and be enforced, society will have transformed so much that the acts of individual members of Congress would hardly matter. I really don't see that happening, not unless the number of fundamentalist and evangelical Christians in this country were to fall low enough that someone would want to pass a blatantly unconstitutional law to make that happen. I know people look to countries like Canada for precedent here, but it is crucial to recognize that Canada has nothing like the First Amendment and a completely different political culture.