Hunting The Muse

Sacrifice and Selfishness

She says that homosexuals are all inherently weak people, just as they are all inherently selfish people, because they don’t know how to deny themselves anything.

Maya Keyes, referring to her mother, who is the wife of Illinois Senate Candidate Alan Keyes

That quote just struck me because, aside from the bigotry, it's an example of equating generosity with sacrifice. That's one of the bigger misunderstandings out there, fueling many of the creepier sects of Christianity.

It's difficult because "sacrifice", in addition to "sin", is one of those ambiguous words that can mean many different things. There are some people who use sacrifice as a vanilla term for anything that requires expending energy towards something that isn't completely self-centered. That's not the definition of sacrifice that I'm thinking of. There's another definition of sacrifice that holds that it is somehow holy to actually reduce oneself in service of another cause - where the point isn't contributing to the cause, but in the actual denial of the self. It's unnecessary, creepy, harmful, debasing, and abusive when combined with the evangelical belief that other people should do it too. There's nothing honorable about reducing oneself, whether or not it improves something for someone else. When that happens, it's just an indicator that there's probably a better way to do it that's better for everyone.

It's so silly, it's as if these people believe love is a zero sum game.

Posted by Curt at September 29, 2004 01:23 AM