A: They're both religions and not-religions, depending on which is most convenient at the moment.

The New York Times:

Citing laws that govern vocational schools, like those for hairdressers and truck drivers, regulators have begun to require licenses for yoga schools that train instructors, with all the fees, inspections and paperwork that entails. While confrontations have played out differently in different states, threats of shutdowns and fines have, in some cases, been met with accusations of power grabs and religious infringement...

Religious infringement? Gee, how is that possible, since yoga isn't at all, not even the slightest, tiniest bit, a religion?

In New York State, though, teachers fought back, complaining that the new rules could erode thin bottom lines, contradict religious underpinnings...

The state attempts to regulate yoga instruction like a vocational school, and suddenly, viola, we learn that yoga has religious underpinnings. (Which would one never guess by examining the basic vocabulary used by (and claims made by) yoga promoters.)

Brette Popper, a co-founder of Yoga City NYC, a Web site that has chronicled licensing developments, said the yoga community — described on the site as "a group that doesn't even always agree about how to pronounce 'Om'" — was uniting around a common enemy.

So do you think, now that yoga promoters have discovered the state isn't always their friend, they'll start voting for more individual freedom (that is, toward the right) and against ever increasing state power (that is, the left)? Heh, I crack me up: that'll be the same year Oprah tells her book club members to subscribe to Reason magazine.

For the record, I think yoga obviously is a religion, and thus deserves the same protection other religions are given. BUT, they should also be required to be honest about this, right up front. As it is, they play the same two-faced game many other "cults" play, of pretending to be just a technology, or form of exercise, until the tax man comes around.

Of course, the state is full of it too. This is being done for the good of the public? The state licenses hair stylists, too — but we all know that hasn't saved us from quite a number of regrettable haircuts and perms. How will the state ensure high-quality yoga instruction? By systematically checking the auras, or vibrational frequency, of would-be instructors?