A powered pilot, flying VFR and without an IMC or IR, is not allowed to enter cloud, and is actually supposed to remain 1000 feet vertically from cloud.
Glider pilots, on the other hand, ARE allowed to fly within this 1000 foot band without any special equipment or enhanced rating or training - it is crucial to their ability to gain worthwhile lift and thus sustain lengthy flights.
It would be utterly unreasonable to impose the same VFR vertical separation of 1000 feet from cloud on the gliding community that powered pilots are required to observe.
However, it doesn't seem unreasonable to require that ANY aircraft intending to operate within cloud or above a cloud layer - powered or glider - should carry some form of transponder or device to help avoid collisions.
Glider pilots could then continue to operate UP TO the cloud base, while remaining clear of cloud, without having to carry a transponder - and this would, from the comments made on this thread, appear to be the overwhelming majority of pilots.
It would - as others have said - be a point very much in the gliding community's favour if they self-regulated in this way, which might go a long way towards preventing the mandatory carriage of transponders on ALL gliders, or a blanket ban on cloud flying (or an increase in separation from cloud) for ALL gliders. Better perhaps to make a small concession on a point that affects the minority rather than curtail the privileges for the majority.
To clarify - I am referring to operating OCAS!
FBW