You want to know how it will be. Me and him or you and me. You both stand there your long hair flowing, your eyes alive your mind still growing, saying to me “What can we do now that we both love you?” I love you too. I don’t really see why can’t we go on as three.” Triad, by David Crosby, 1970.

One of the many truly stupid reasons some people use to avoid getting the Covid vaccine (and, wait for it, the forthcoming booster shots) is that it infringes their right to religious freedom.

Well, so much for that “thou shalt not kill” crap. No needles for these hypocrites!

Be that as it may, the entire freedom of religion thing always is defined by whose ox is being gored. Often, this is an argument with severe limitations: people are really complaining about their religious freedom being infringed. Yours? Screw you, pal. Your religion is wrong, my religion is right, so go fry in my definition of hell.

You can’t reality-test religion – by definition, a person’s beliefs are a matter of faith and not proven fact. For example, there are religions that hold ritual human sacrifice to be part of their canon. Yet we here in America, as well as in several other nations, tend to frown upon ritual human sacrifice no matter what an individual’s belief structure might be.

How about polygamy? As far as I can tell, this, too, is frowned upon here in America, as well as in several other nations, even among consenting adults. In my book, religion has nothing to do with polygamy: if everybody is an adult and is completely consenting, it’s nobody else’s business. Besides, without the concept of polygamy we probably wouldn’t have Wonder Woman.

Nonetheless, various large religious groups sanction polygamy. Various Buddhist, Islamic, and Hindu denominations are perfectly okay with it. Of course, here in the United States and elsewhere, there is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a.k.a. the Mormons. They only “abandoned” polygamy in 1904 because they were being chased out of most of what was America at the time. Still, according to television reality shows, such multi-partnered relationships still exist among the faithful.

Sigh. So many men are afraid some other dude is gonna score on “their” pussy.

Okay. Having said this, perhaps you understand why this whole “getting the vaccine violates my religious freedom” thing is bullshit. We violate people’s religious freedom every hour of every day, usually by a perception of general acceptance. Blue laws violate other people’s religious freedom.

Covid is killing us. Covid-19 offed at least four million people worldwide. Covid-21 is rapidly turning back the clock. According to the CDC – which the anti-vaxxers consider a Socialist plot – 64,317 new cases of Covid were reported the week before last and the number is increasing rapidly… once again.

And that’s just the Delta variant. Imagine when we get up to Omega.

All this boils down to something quite simple. Some people who are refusing to get vaccinated are guilty of attempted manslaughter. Others, either knowingly, unknowingly or out of astonishing self-centered self-righteousness, are absolutely guilty of manslaughter. We should toss these people in prison and do so immediately.

Let’s see how long it takes for them to get the jab.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from all of us at Pop Culture Squad to all of you. We hope all your holiday dreams come true in whatever way you celebrate!!!

Happy Thanksgiving from all of us to all of you!!