“It is the certainty that they possess the truth that makes men cruel.”

- Anatole France

Three years ago, at the height of the cries from certain Muslims calling for the heads of sex bloggers who shall remain nameless - nameless because I detest feeding egos - I wrote the following:

“Until there is a change in thinking in how these laws are applied, I say the only truly moral stance, would be to not qualify our statements as to the nature of these selective prosecutions. This will never happen of course because as we all know everything revolves around Muslim sensitivities. As long as these sensitivities are used as political capital, we will always be at the mercy of those who claim to speak on behalf of a religion which claims to be compassionate and just, and those who are afraid to oppose them even though they know the reality of it.”

Today I revisit this quote because of what Islamic affairs minister Jamil Khir Baharom claimed in his written parliamentary reply that “any legislation to ban unilateral conversion is unconstitutional.” Of course, I have no interest in debating constitutional provisions with an Umno minster when as MCA’s religious harmony bureau chairperson, Ti Lian Ker, correctly pointed out that “the child’s faith must remain status quo as announced by then de facto law minister Nazri Abdul Aziz in 2009.”

As usual when it comes to Umno and Islam, the defenders of the faith are in fact defenders of sensitivities of the community whom they claim to represent and who they give no avenue to dissent, even if said community have divergent views on the matter. In other words, Umno defends Islam as they define it.

And we can tell the kind of religion this is when Jamil Khir says, “In the context of the law system and judiciary in Malaysia, the court, be it civil or syariah, upholds the principle of justice in ensuring that the parties of the unilateral conversion are protected.”

Let us take, the most recent unilateral conversion case, that of S Deepa (photo). Jamil Khir wants us to understand that the party (sic) protected is someone like Muslim convert, N Viran @ Izwan Abdullah. An alleged domestic abuser, a known kidnapper (this according to Tourism and Culture Minister Nazri Abdul Aziz), a man who has reportedly admitted that he converted to Islam to enjoy special privileges and in an instance of extreme self-pity and display of blame shifting, exclaimed, “If this is how it will be, do they want me to go back and drink ‘arak haram’ (liquor)?"...