The photo sparked a frenzy. Nothing, it seemed, could so neatly encapsulate the religious right's backsliding as Falwell Jr. giving a thumbs-up in front of the very magazine his father had singled out as symbolic of America's moral decay--while standing shoulder to shoulder with a man who had appeared in a softcore porno flick and who reportedly, as Jimmy Carter might have put it, screwed a bunch of women outside of marriage, including a Playboy model and hardcore adult-film actress.

The interment comes 20 years after Shepard was found beaten and hanging on a wooden fence in Laramie, Wyoming. His assailants had pistol whipped him over a dozen times and set his body of fire. He'd been there, barely alive in the cold Wyoming October, for almost a full day before he was discovered. Just 21 years old and a student at the University of Wyoming, Shepard would die five days after his body was found, in a hospital.

"We were burglarized this time by foreign agents. It's just as serious to me as the Cuban Missile Crisis in terms of an attack or the 9/11 attack. The president is taking the side of the people who attacked us.

"His performance today will live in infamy as much as the Pearl Harbor attack or Kristallnacht and it's really a serious issue that we need to deal with."

The legal action was originally brought against family-run Ashers bakery in Belfast by gay rights activist Gareth Lee, who won his case initially in the county court and then at the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal.

Announcing the court's decision, its president, Lady Hale, said: "This conclusion is not in any way to diminish the need to protect gay people and people who support gay marriage from discrimination.