Two Perspectives on (Voting) Abstinence

Steven Riddle at Flos Carmeli (a wonderful blog, by the way) read the same Crisis piece I linked to earlier and responds:

What is astounding in the excerpt above is its lack of recognition that refusal to vote is NOT inaction, it is action at its very highest. Refusal of moral compromise is the most important action we can take.

I won’t comment on the political state at the moment, nor on my own view of what should and should not be done. However, not voting is rather like refusal to move when blocking the doors of an abortion clilnic. You get yourself thrown in jail, reviled and hated by the media, branded a fanatic, and ultimately probably don’t change even a single mind that day–but that steadfast refusal is a witness to a societal evil so profound that even if you witness accomplishes nothing else it is a testament of the courage that accompanies refusal of moral compromise–it charges the world with a greater good.

On the other hand, “Fr. Jape” at the New Pantagruel has some less kind things to say about the non-voter:

More on the “not voting” malady among committed Christians: What does it portend when a luminary of Evangelicaldom, a former supporter of cultural and political “engagement” among defeatist, self-disenfranchising religious rightists, publicly declares his intention not to vote? The Christian Century reprinted Noll’s declaration of his disengagement, perhaps because the Century’s typical, liberal reader will find a sign of slow progress and hope for the future regarding the housetraining of the once uppity evangelicals. A supposedly “militant” pro-lifer who doesn’t vote against John Kerry obviously isn’t very militant and may in time gather the courage to come out of the closet and cease being a crypto-liberal.

Ouch!