I’d planned a good news column for today but bad news tumbled into my email in-tray.

Three hundred words were forming on how Jesus Christ had built up British society via a rich Christian heritage of law and order, education, family life, the work ethic, stability and security.

Then the bad-news email pinged through and I wondered if we’d ever again look back in admiration and thanksgiving.

I mentioned last week that Christians were gathering outside parliament to pray that the Lords would see the heaven-sent common-sense of traditional marriage.

Well, the main meeting was called off on discovering a vote would not be taken. The Lords were merely rubber-stamping the Bill back to the Commons.

However, some Christian leaders did meet for prayer, and especially to support their van-poster around the House of Lords.

But the van never turned up.

Another one did. It proclaimed “Equal Marriage: Thank You”, and slowly drove unmolested around Westminster, cheered loudly by gay supporters.

The no-show Christian van was to remind peers that “Evidence shows children do best with married birth parents”. A picture of a child accompanied the question - “What about Sophie?” This van never turned up because it was vandalised and the driver put in fear of his life.

"While the van was travelling around on Sunday,” Alan Craig, campaign director for GayMarriageNoThanks, explained, “the billboard was pulled off one side by some bystanders who shouted obscenities.

"The Adtrailer Company phoned us later and said they couldn't run the advert the next day. They had received violent threats… and threatening emails.

“They said they couldn't afford to drive the advert around again. They were concerned about the safety of their own staff.”

Pray that this kind of opposition doesn’t worsen with the passage of the same sex marriage Bill.