A gay person is working in a Belfast bakery shop when a customer comes in and orders a cake for an evangelical Christian function.
He asks that it be decorated with a marzipan man and woman and the slogan, 'Oppose gay marriage'. The shop assistant politely declines. He says he can't, in conscience, fulfil the order. He is hauled before the courts on discrimination charges.
Those now denouncing Ashers would hail a gay shop assistant, who took such a course of action, as a hero. That's the hypocrisy at the heart of this whole matter.
They'd say it didn't matter what any court ruled, that morally the shop assistant had done the right thing. He had taken the hard, but rewarding, road. He'd stood up for his principles.
I support gay marriage wholeheartedly. If Northern Ireland ever has a referendum like the Republic's, I wouldn't need to read the literature from either side to know that I was voting 'Yes'.
But forcing another human being to produce a political slogan with which they disagree is just plain wrong. There are no 'ifs' or 'buts' about it.
A Catholic worker should never be ordered to ice a cake saying 'Support Orange marches through nationalist areas'. A Protestant worker should never be forced to ice a cake honouring the hunger-strikers.
Most of us instinctively know that mandating staff in either scenario would be undemocratic and unjust.
And that's why so many people, usually supportive of the campaign for equal rights for gay people, aren't celebrating this verdict.
The activists backing this case may have notched up a courtroom victory but they have a lost a lot of public sympathy, and respect, in the process.
Rightly or wrongly, they're seen as petty, dogmatic and mean-spirited while the most right-wing, reactionary Christian fundamentalists appear reasonable and victimised. That's quite a PR victory to hand your opponents.
Taking this case was a strategic blunder for gay rights' activists. Their overall campaign for equality here will be set back years, and that's shameful.
For the record, I wouldn't ice a cake in support of fox-hunting or Bernie Smyth and her Precious Life cronies. And I find it disturbing that gay rights' activists have championed a course of action which would force me to legally do so.
