I'd even argue public votes can deescalate some situations, for example where both sides of a relatively heated discussion can see they vote each other up. They don't necessarily agree but they appreciate the other side's points.
As for the transparency, it's not possible to list all the votes of a user, one rather needs to list votes on a given post. To profile a given user the attacker would need to cross-reference the data from all posts and comments which is computationally infeasible, both client-side and server-side.
This reasoning kind of falls apart when we consider that one or the most important rules of most religions is to convert others, or at the very least shun them one way or another. Being insufferable about their believes is a crucial part of their believes.