Something is wrong when you find yourself agreeing with the National Secular Society.

The NSS have recently written in favour of Archbishop Cranmer, the learned and witty blogger who has come under pressure from the Advertising Standards Authority for running an advertisement on his site.

The advertisement was for the Coalition for Marriage, which has run in several major broadsheets and numerous other blogs. It’s unclear why the ASA singled him out for particular ‘questioning’, although they claim that they acted because a handful of people, around 25, complained that the advert was misleading, offensive or homophobic.

Cranmer’s response has been punctilious and eviscerating and can be read here.

What does this sorry saga (which has not yet run its course) tell us?

Firstly, there are some non-religious types out there who are quite as eccentric as the religious about whom they complain so vociferously. If you genuinely believe that an advertisement for marriage is offensive or homophobic, you may have lost contact with reality.

Second, there are some unpleasant double standards at play. It is hard to count the number of times those of a liberal/ secular persuasion intone that people do not have a right not to be offended. Quite so: hence Jerry Springer, Piss Christ, Satanic Verses, Mohammed Cartoons and all the rest of it. But it’s different – at least in the mind of some – if the thing held sacred is about sexuality or choice rather than religion.

Third, most alarmingly, the ASA, an organisation with a necessary and important job in a civilised society, has made itself look like a complete ass in even considering this case. And it seems as if they know it. Their first communication with Cranmer was terse to the point of threatening:

The complaint falls under the harm and offence section of the British Code of Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing. Please explain why you thought the advertising was suitable for your readers and whether readers have complained to you direct. Please respond by 21st May at the latest. Please keep this correspondence confidential.

To which they added:

We will need to see robust documentary evidence to back the claims and a clear explanation from you of its relevance and why you think it substantiates the claims. It is not enough to send references to or abstracts of documents and papers without sending the reports in full and specifically highlighting the relevant parts explaining why they are relevant to the matter in hand.

This could be put down to the default official (or officious) tone of such epistles.

But the fact that, in their subsequent communication, the ASA has rather back-peddled is indicative. Answering Cranmer’s first response, they remarked, “though we value your input, publishers are not compelled to respond to us”, to which the Venerable Archbishop has rightly pointed out that this was neither the tone nor the message of the original communication.

It takes a lot for the National Secular Society, an organisation pathologically hostile to religion in all its forms, to come out in defence of a religious blogger. But when even they think Cranmer “is right to resist the ASA’s bullying tone”, and “wish him well in his campaign” something has gone terribly wrong.

Either the ASA’s action (and tone) in this case is a grotesque aberration that demands fulsome apology, or it is not. And if it is not, we should all be worried.

Nick Spencer is Research Director at Theos