I WAITED to write this until the first crop of reactions was in to the European Court of Human Rights cases on discrimination against Christians. What was notable was how thoughtful and restrained the judgments themselves were compared with the immediate comments prepared, probably long in advance, by the pressure groups involved.

From The Daily Telegraph: "Mike Judge, spokesman for the Christian Institute, which supported Miss Ladele, said: 'What this case shows is that Christians with traditional beliefs about marriage are at risk of being left out in the cold.

"'If the Government steamrollers ahead with its plans to redefine marriage, then hundreds of thousands of people could be thrown out of their jobs unless they agree to endorse gay marriage.'"

Hundreds of thousands? Really?

Balance this with something from the National Secular Society's reaction: "Religious people who feel elements of their job go against their conscience can always find employment that better matches their needs. That is true religious freedom." This is not quite the line it takes when atheist consciences are threatened by religious policies.

The Archbishop of York, Dr Sentamu, seems to have been primed, as perhaps the Government was, for this outcome. He got his statement into the Mail online: "Christians are not obliged to wear a cross but should be free to show their love for and trust in Jesus Christ in this way if they so wish. The Equality Act 2010 encourages employers to embrace diversity - including people of faith." Not a word about the gay issue.

There is, in fact, a perfectly clear line running through the four court judgments: that secular democratic values about homosexuality (or, for that matter, hygiene in hospitals) override religious objections, but that religious symbols should be treated so far as possible equally.

Only Owen Bowcott in The Guardian picked up the remarkable attack in a dissenting opinion in the Ladele case: "Two ECHR judges, Nebojsa Vucinic and Vincent de Gaetano, said Ladele's right to freedom of conscience had been infringed [and] launched a fierce verbal attack on the culture prevalent in her local authority: 'In the third applicant's case, however, a combination of backstabbing by her colleagues and the blinkered political correctness of the borough of Islington (which clearly favoured "gay rights" over fundamental human rights) eventually led to her dismissal.'"

The other aspect that people seem not to have noticed in the initial reaction is that the ECHR does not claim to give the only right answers. It judges whether the verdicts that come before it are within the acceptable range of national interpretations of the convention. This means that other cases, perhaps from other countries, might be decided differently, and still be judged compliant with the convention. So there may be an endless supply of these stories. I do hope there isn't.

THE more serious religious sex story of the week concerned the Revd Steve Chalke, a popular Baptist minister, who came out for the recognition of some gay relationships. The reaction of other Evangelicals will be fascinating to watch.

Jerome Taylor, in The Independent, had the most telling quote: "in a damning critique of his own community [Chalke] even blames Christian stigmatisation of homosexuals as something which has caused genuine physical harm.

"'People's lives are at stake,' he says. 'Numerous studies show that suicide rates among gay people, especially young people, are comparatively high. Church leaders sometimes use this data to argue that homosexuality is unhealthy, when tragically it's anti-gay stigma, propped up by church attitudes, which, all too often, drives these statistics.'"

AND so to the last story of the week, provided by Richard Desmond's Sunday Express: "JIMMY SAVILE beat and raped a 12-year-old girl during a secret satanic ritual in a hospital. The perverted star wore a hooded robe and mask as he abused the terrified victim in a candle-lit basement.

"He also chanted 'Hail Satan' in Latin as other paedophile devil-worshippers joined in and assaulted the girl at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Buckinghamshire. The attack, which happened in 1975, shines a sinister new light on the former DJ's 54-year reign of terror."

This is all quite puzzling until you read on and discover that these are recovered memories as told to Valerie Sinason, a psychiatrist notorious for her belief in ritual Satanic abuse.

No wonder Richard Desmond told the Leveson inquiry he didn't know what "ethics" meant.