The bizarre verdict in Northern Ireland will do nothing for equality or for gay people.

For anyone who missed it, a Northern Irish Christian couple, Daniel and Amy McArthur, were fined £500 on Monday for refusing to make a customer a cake with icing saying ‘Support Gay Marriage’.

As far as my personal view goes, I fully support gay marriage (not that there would be anything wrong if I didn’t).

However, if I owned a cake shop there is every chance I would refuse to make a cake with the message ‘Support Gay Marriage’, in much the same way as I might refuse to make an anti-abortion cake or a ‘Free Palestine’ cake.

Whether Mr Gareth Lee, whose order of the cake was refused, likes it or not, gay marriage is a political issue, not an incontrovertible truth, and this is where three judges at the court of appeal in Belfast seem to have got their wires crossed.

While acknowledging that born-again Christian bakers Mr and Mrs McArthur did not refuse Mr Lee service because he was gay, and had served him many times before, the judges said: “We accept that it was the use of the word ‘gay’ in the context of the message which prevented the order from being fulfilled.

“The reason that the order was cancelled was that the appellants would not provide a cake with a message supporting a right to marry for those of a particular sexual orientation.

“The fact that a baker provides a cake for a particular team or portrays witches on a Halloween cake does not indicate any support for either.”

Hang on, what kind of analogy is that? As far as I am aware, a Tottenham fan running a cake shop would be well within their legal rights to refuse to make an Arsenal cake if it bothered them so much. And if somebody had a 14th Century view of witches, nobody could force their business to make a Halloween cake.

These judges want gay marriage to be a special case but, with that one sentence, seem to simultaneously make clear that it isn’t.

They went on to say: “What the respondent wanted the appellants to do would not require them to promote or support gay marriage which was contrary to their deeply held religious beliefs.”

“The appellants cancelled the order as they opposed same sex marriage which is inextricably linked to sexual relations between same sex couples which is a union of persons having a particular sexual orientation.”

While there is a very strong argument that refusing to make a cake for a gay wedding would be discriminatory behaviour, that is completely different to allowing a customer to storm into a shop, request a cake with whatever political message they want and take the store owner to court if they refuse.

Judging by this verdict, if a request was made for a ‘Support Sharia Law’ cake, to take one example, there are now no legal safeguards for a business that doesn’t wish to be associated with such a slogan, no matter how much it might contravene the religious beliefs of both themselves and the majority of the population.

Unlike the judges’ analogy, this is a logical one. While supporting gay marriage is obviously not extremist, I would say Mr Lee does qualify as an extremist. What kind of person abuses a personal relationship with shopkeepers he has known for a long time by taking them to court, rather than just finding a business that would make the cake?

Make no mistake, this vindictive move wasn’t about the money, it was about humiliating the couple for their religious beliefs. Mr Lee will absolutely believe he did the right thing in making former acquaintances casualties in the pursuit of the greater political cause. It’s a real Stalinist quality.

However the sad reality is the actions of this extremist will do nothing for gay people. In a country like Britain, where homosexuals are more integrated in society than almost anywhere else in the world, it would be a tragedy if the actions of Mr Lee enhanced mutual suspicions between homosexuals and wider society in the way that the actions of Muslim extremists have for mainstream Muslims.

There is also a global dynamic to this. In little more than 30 years Britain has gone from being a society where homosexuality was seen as pretty abhorrent to one where homophobia is abhorrent, and that change is unequivocally positive.

However the global battle against homophobia is not being won. Places such as Russia, Central Asia and much of Africa are getting more homophobic, not less so.

The reason being that homosexuality was so unheard of previously, but now the illiberal liberalism (you read that correctly) of countries like Britain has brought it into the limelight. Invariably the reason people in these parts of the world will give for their suspicion, if not outright hostility, towards gay people is ‘we must never be like Western Europe’.

If being like Western Europe means people in these countries would have to endure what the McArthurs have endured, I can’t say they’re wrong.