IBET a lot of people have a treasured tea service or a set of beautiful crystal glasses.

You only use them on special occasions, weddings, anniversaries, christenings, because you don’t want to cheapen them by everyday use.

Using them for a midweek tea or when you’re having a glass in front of the TV just wouldn’t be right. You might break one and the set would never be the same again. It’s all about respecting something precious.

Now I think human rights and the legislation protecting them are a bit like those treasured heirlooms. They’re valuable – indispensable, in fact.

But use them too often, claim that this or that is a breach of your human rights when it is really just an annoyance or inconvenience, then the whole principle of human rights becomes devalued. And that is more dangerous and damaging than a chipped glass.

I welcome the judgements at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg this week. But I also ask whether these cases needed to go so far or take so long, and whether in the desert of litigation and confrontation, there is still somewhere an oasis of sanity.

Compromise, common sense, goodwill and good management were all that was needed to resolve these issues. They are in short supply.

But we still have plenty of lawyers.

The issue in one case was whether someone could wear a cross at work. The court found in their favour and I think that is perfectly just. If someone wants to display a symbol of their religion – any religion – in the workplace, that is fine by me. I meet people of all creeds on a daily basis and many choose to do this. More often than not, I don’t even notice.

I am more interested in the person.

The other cases which were rejected were more complex. Basically they involved people working with the public in one way or another, who claimed their religious beliefs prevented them from treating gay people the same way that they did other people.

Here the court ruled against them, on the grounds that one person’s personal beliefs can’t crowd out someone else’s freedom. The court did the same kind of balancing act we all do every day to get along with people whose lifestyle, principles or politics are different from our own.

In other words, we compromise. As I wrote last week, compromises rarely satisfy zealots, who see everything in absolutes. But they are surely better than the permanent trench warfare that is the alternative.

In an interview, I heard a man from an organisation that represents Christians in the workplace asked by a hopeful journalist whether his members all felt put upon, persecuted.

Not really, came the tame reply. Most people get along fine most of the time.

And that, rather than these extreme cases, is the reality. We jog along pretty well, people of all faiths and none. Show respect and you’ll be given it, behave as a friendly tolerant human being and that is how you will be treated.

Back in the 1980s, I’m ashamed to say, I became a fan of a TV show called LA Law in which impossibly glamorous advocates drank coffee, shouted a lot, had affairs with each other and launched endless multi-billion dollar law suits if someone broke a finger nail.

Thank goodness real life isn’t like that, I used to say.

But now it is and unless we learn that talking to each other is better than taking each other to court, we haven’t a prayer.