The Oxford Comma: what's your opinion?

The Oxford comma, sometimes known as the serial comma or the Harvard comma, is the comma that appears directly before a coordinating conjunction (such as "and") in a series of three or more terms. For example:

Sid, Ernie, and Theo are dozing in the living room.

The Oxford comma appears right after "Ernie."

Recently, I had a conversation with my mom about the Oxford comma. She feels very strongly about it; she believes that when listing things, sentences that do not utilize the Oxford comma are incorrect.

I don’t necessarily feel the same way.

Despite the fact that I majored in English, my passion for the Oxford comma is relatively nonexistent. I neither love it nor hate it. Because MLA dictates that the Oxford comma be employed, I use it when I’m writing MLA-style papers, but since writers of APA tend not to embrace the Oxford comma, I generally don’t use it when writing in APA. In my mind, the rules of the Oxford comma are relatively black and white. However, in the minds of some others, this is not the case…

I have an English-teacher friend who loves the Oxford comma and a history-teacher friend who hates it. If it were feasible, Mr. English would probably have the Punctuation Police issue large fines to those who neglect to employ it. Mr. History, on the other hand, would rather have those who use the Oxford comma arrested and thrown into jail. He feels that the punctuation’s existence is completely unnecessary and refuses to believe that it serves a purpose.

Which leads me to the reason for this post. I’m curious to learn what you think of the Oxford comma. Are you for it, against it, or indifferent?

Perhaps I should have written, “Are you for it, against it or indifferent?”