an unexpected pair of celebrity nonvoters
July 7th, 2008 by 
bkmarcus
From Joel Schlosberg:
Recently, there have been a number of news stories, such as this one, reporting that Serena and Venus Williams are not voting in the upcoming presidential election due to being Jehovah's Witnesses, which prohibits voting among its adherents (I definitely didn't know that beforehand!)
This is confirmed by Wikipedia, which additionally points out that other political acts eschewed by Jehovah's Witnesses include saluting flags, singing nationalistic songs, and serving in the military, but on the other hand, they're supposed to obey laws and pay taxes.
Joel
Posted in news, philosophy | 
July 10th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
The JW faith also bars its members from registering with the government for any reason (thus, many have gotten in trouble for refusing to register for the draft, or trying to work without Social Security cards). One wonders how the sisters manage to get to Wimbledon and return home without passports.
July 14th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
In high school, I knew a Witness and as he talked about the secular activities he was supposed to avoid, like birthday parties, I asked him: What about voting? He said they don't vote. I responded, that's heroic!!