Is religion inordinately protected to the extent that it unfair?

Every now and then, some minister of something from some government of Singapore will say something like

• "We must maintain religious/racial harmony otherwise we will have riots..................."

or something to that effect.

Which is why we have the Sedition Act that says

3. —(1) A seditious tendency is a tendency —

(a) to bring into hatred or contempt or to excite disaffection against the Government;

(b) to excite the citizens of Singapore or the residents in Singapore to attempt to procure in Singapore, the alteration, otherwise than by lawful means, of any matter as by law established;

(c) to bring into hatred or contempt or to excite disaffection against the administration of justice in Singapore;

(d) to raise discontent or disaffection amongst the citizens of Singapore or the residents in Singapore;

(e) to promote feelings of ill-will and hostility between different races or classes of the population of Singapore.

(2) Notwithstanding subsection (1), any act, speech, words, publication or other thing shall not be deemed to be seditious by reason only that it has a tendency —

(a) to show that the Government has been misled or mistaken in any of its measures;

(b) to point out errors or defects in the Government or the Constitution as by law established or in legislation or in the administration of justice with a view to the remedying of such errors or defects;

(c) to persuade the citizens of Singapore or the residents in Singapore to attempt to procure by lawful means the alteration of any matter in Singapore; or

(d) to point out, with a view to their removal, any matters producing or having a tendency to produce feelings of ill-will and enmity between different races or classes of the population of Singapore, if such act, speech, words, publication or other thing has not otherwise in fact a seditious tendency.

(3) For the purpose of proving the commission of any offence under this Act, the intention of the person charged at the time he did or attempted to do or made any preparation to do or conspired with any person to do any act or uttered any seditious words or printed, published, sold, offered for sale, distributed, reproduced or imported any publication or did any other thing shall be deemed to be irrelevant if in fact such act had, or would, if done, have had, or such words, publication or thing had a seditious tendency.

Notice that 3-1e says that "A seditious tendency is a tendency to promote feelings of ill-will and hostility between different races or classes of the population of Singapore".

I suppose it would be fair to state that people with different beliefs would constitute different "classes" of the population. Therefore, this brings about the question

• "Is religion inordinately protected to the extent that it unfair?"

By unfair, i mean that the act is not applied equally to all different "classes" of the population.

Let us consider these 2 statements.

1) Religion "ABC" is (insert whatever insulting/degrading/blasphemous word)

2) The sky is blue

If statement 1 were to be written on a blog or disseminated by any other method, I am sure the person behind that statement would be hauled up to court and charged.

But statement 2 is uttered so many times each day by so many people all over Singapore. They are insulting/degrading/blaspheming a "class" of the population out there in Singapore. In fact I am one of the members of that class who believe that saying the phrase "The sky is blue" is the most heinous act one can do to members of my "class" (Opps i uttered that bad phrase unwittingly). By saying "The sky is blue" (Opps i did it again), these people "promote feelings of ill-will and hostility between different races or classes of the population of Singapore." We members of the "class" that holds such strange beliefs are indeed very upset with those remarks and definately felt the "ill-will" and "hostility" behind those words.

So why aren't the police arresting those evil, riot inciting people? Is it because my "class" of the population is simply too small to waste taxpayer's money on? That's wouldn't be very fair would it? Is it because it would be contravening the freedom of speech act? Then why is statement 1 forbidden? That is not very fair either. Is it because my beliefs are unfalsifiable coupled with the total lack of evidence behind it? Nah. That's pot calling kettle black and not very fair once again. So why am I suffering from such injustice? Sob sob :(

According the the Constitution of Singapore,

12. —(1) All persons are equal before the law and entitled to the equal protection of the law.

Yikes! What a strange place i live in!