Last weekend, a more or less traditional priest unknowingly gave a homily that essentially argues for the primacy of conscience over institutional church dogmas when taken to its logical conclusion. In the gospel reading for that day (John 4:5-42), the priest notes that Jesus ignores Jewish socio-religious customs by talking to a Samaritan woman alone at a well while waiting for his disciples to return. Jewish men weren't supposed to talk to women who aren't their spouse or close relative in seclusion. He also transgressed long-standing socio-religious custom by interacting with a Samaritan, who were shunned by Jews and vice versa. According to one commentary, Samaritan women in particular were seen as ritually unclean in the eyes of religious leaders, so the act of asking for a drink of water from one was particularly transgressive.
But none of this stops Jesus from acknowledging her as a person and showing her kindness, as well as giving her an esoteric teaching on material vs. spiritual thirst. For him, there's no distinction between man and woman, Jew and Samaritan; there are simply two people interacting, and it's only this personal relationship that truly matters, a relationship some from a philosophical POV call "the 'unity of I and Thou.'" And in following Jesus' example in this gospel, I think it's perfectly acceptable for, and even the duty of, Christians to transgress socio-religious customs whenever they're hateful, backwards, small-minded, discriminatory, and/or oppressive, like those barring women from the priesthood or ideas about the sinfulness of same-sex relationships.
