yitayningwut: Unfortunately, this is an ongoing, unavoidable problem for people like R. Broyde (and myself) who believe that the Torah provides us with wide boundaries to apply the halacha in light of local conditions and circumstances, and that someone on the left or right’s paskining differently than we would like does not take them out of the orthodox camp. Why are we less accommodating to some halachic developments (i.e., the traditional conservative rulings from the first half of the 1900s) and more tolerant (though not approving) of others (like current movements to make things more accommodating to women)? Ultimately, I think it comes down to each rav/posek’s judgement. R. Broyde feels as though psak X is legitimate (though not ideal) while psak Y is completely unacceptable; other poskim feel differently (the “she’asani isha” issue is one such point – I have heard several prominent MO poskim call this the beginnings of a new conservative movement, while others are merely uncomfortable with it, but understand its halachic basis).
I think a lot can be explained by the MO world’s general aversion to labeling in the way the chareidi world does. For the MO, people’s commitment to Torah falls somewhere on a sliding scale spectrum – you are more or less observant of halacha, but just because you wear pants, don’t cover your hair, or play ball on shabbos doesn’t make you “non-orthodox”; you are simply less than perfectly observant of halacha. To be sure, there are limits; shmiras shabbos, kashrus, and taharas hamishpacha may set the boundaries of orthodoxy, but the decision to say sheasani isha or to allow a woman to paskin shailos and to give her a title signifying that fact (all backed by halachic reasoning, even if not mainstream) do not go to the core of whether or not a person recognizes the ol malchuis shamayim.
Labels are far more important to the chareidim. And for good reason: The chareidim reject integration with the wider world, and chareidi hashkafa therefore depends largely on insular cohesive uniform communities. Black pants and white shirts; hats and jackets; different streimels for different chassidim; adherence to Daas Torah on matter other than halacha; ect. Conformity is important, and so it is also important for chareidim to have bright-line determinations of who is and is not “in the camp.” You can’t be a less-observant-chareidi (like you can be a less-observant-MO), you are simply no longer chareidi, and as the deviation from the charedi norm becomes more pronounced you are outside orthodoxy and are now conservative or reform.
These distinctions between camps are much less important to the MO. You observe halacha or you don’t; you observe more or you observe less. As long as the MO poskim feel that your innovations or changes are merely troublesome and misguided, but are not a complete rejection of the ol malchus shamayim, there is no need to remove you from the camp (which exists only in some hazy sketch anyway).
Ultimately, the point is that time, hashgacha pratis, and successive generations of poskim will tell whether like the conservatives of the early 1900s, the LWMO will reject God’s Torah in favor of their own creation, or whether other groups will accept some or all of their ideas as legitimate and they will be incorporated into the mainstream.
.