The great "call in" debate

I had a conversation with my gay BF Juston the other day about work and he really got me a little crazy.
A few weeks ago he had invited me to go play "drag queen" bingo next weekend. I am scheduled to work and he suggested that I call in and go. I explained to him that I don't "call in", I never call in. Its not in my work ethic to call in and I can't even imagine it. It really frustrates me when other people call in as well. If people just came in when they are scheduled, there would never be a reason to have to scramble and call everyone to try and cover the shift. The downfall to it all, is that if no one can be found to work, the person who was supposed to be replaced by the no show has to stay and get stuck working. Sometimes its just for a few hours, sometimes its for a whole other shift.
Juston's rationale for calling in and not feeling bad about it is that, on call employee's could just be called to cover the shift. I tried to explained to him that, where I work, that isn't the case and even if it were, its still wrong. I mean he wanted me to call in so I could go play drag queen bingo, which is so wrong in my book. If I were to ever call in, I better have a death in the family or be extremely sick.
I went on the further explain that I wouldn't hire him to work for me. It kind of struck a chord with him and he was offended. The conversation got a little heated from there and I stood my ground. I am confident that I'd be justified in "shit canning" any employees I hire if they call in often. His rationale again was "well you have to take the good employees with the bad", you can't have ALL good one's. My thought was, "Why the hell not?" Is it too much for me to expect my employee's to show up when scheduled? Am I being naive?
In this enconomy, having a well paying and steady job is a blessing and something to be proud of. If you don't care about it, then maybe you shouldn't have one and maybe you need to realize what it is like to not have one and can appreciate it after it is gone.