I'm percolating a thought... dangerous

Why are we so willing to excuse the past while being unwilling to deviate from it?
The religious leaders complained that the disciples were "working" by rubbing heads of wheat in their hands and eating it while walking through a wheat field. Jesus reminds them that King David actually went into the "house of God" and took the consecrated bread from the alter and ate it! So, the religious leaders had excused the acts of David while still enforcing the law of not working on the sabbath. They excused one act of lawlessness while upholding another law.

So I'm pondering and percolating this strange thing. Are there areas where we have excused the behaviors of certain people in the past, while at the same time holding others as law breakers in the present?

Not sure where this is going, maybe nowhere... help me out if you have a thought. Just seems strange to me. I think there might be a principle or an application here somewhere just not sure what it is, beyond the one plainly stated by Jesus - the law exists for people not people for the law...

behind the obvious, veiled perhaps...