I am a deep believer in the importance of free speech, but there are things that strain that belief. In
an article at the BBC, the Catholic Archbishop of Mozambique is quoted as saying, on the subject of condom use to protect against AIDS:
Condoms are not sure because I know that there are two countries in Europe, they are making condoms with the virus on purpose
That's right, he's accusing condom manufacturers of
putting HIV into the condoms in order to infect anyone who uses them. Now, the position of the Catholic Church on condoms is already indefensible in the era of HIV/AIDS: it's responsible for a lot of deaths. Fortunately, I think most people, even uneducated ones, hear "abstinence rather than condoms" and realize that if they are having sex, condoms are a good idea. So I think that, in the context of the people who really are correctly educated about condoms and have access to them, the Church's opposition is not all that successful.
But now, we have a religious leader using false scare tactics, telling people that the condoms themselves may kill them. Now he really has given people a reason to avoid condoms even when they are having sex.
This statement alone is going to result in so many thousands of deaths that it's hard for me to think of it as anything other than criminal. Is it philosophically protected free speech, or is the Archbishop committing thousands of indirect murders? If you can't yell "Fire" in a crowded theater, can you lie to millions in a way that will get many of them killed by a virus they could have avoided?
