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Season are descriptive of important opportunities, not mandatory actions. They provide guidance and not governance. The fact that they utilize a quasir halakhic form is significant because it seeks to link Reform Judaism with Rabbinic Judaism and at the same time reflect the view of the Pittsburgh Platform, which maintain only such ceremonies as elevate and sanctify our lives.
The responsa, which in answering specific questions either addressed individual authority or more often to the Responsa committee, are more about a way of reasoning and decision-making that uses Jewish texts as a way of bringing guidance to an issue rather than an attempt to definitely decide the question. For us, halakhah is a way of thinking, not a set of decisions. Responsa seem increasingly to be about mitzvot bein adam le haveiro, specifically about the great ethical dilemmas we encounter in contemporary society and the boundary issues between Jews and non-Jews in an open society
Both forms of Reform’s halakhic literature seek to reinforce that concept: We must never forget, though that was first and foremost how Jews related to 4000 years of Jewish history and related to 13 million Jews the world over. The burden of proof, therefore, must always be on those who want to abandon a particular tradition, not on those who want to retain it.”(Rabbi Simeon Maslin, Gates of the Seasons , p. viii).