In most cases yes — a private publisher is not the government, and a book deal is a contract between two private parties. But how they can end it, what notice they owe, whether your rights revert to you, and what happens to any advance are all governed by the contract you signed and by your state's contract law. Get the decision and the clause they are relying on in writing before you respond to anything.
What is actually happening
You are being separated from a company, and the separation is being framed as a business decision so nobody has to defend it as a moral one. What the publisher usually wants is a quiet exit: a signed release, a mutual statement, and no written record of why. The silence is the point. It lets the next author in line learn the lesson without anyone ever having to say out loud that holding the historic Christian view of marriage is now a disqualifying trait.
Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it · Rule 13. One author is singled out and made an example, because isolating a single person is cheaper and safer than defending a policy that applies to everyone. Old statements get pulled forward and reframed as risk, so the argument becomes about you rather than about the belief. The counter is refusing the isolation — put the decision in writing, say the conviction plainly, and let others see it happen.
What Scripture says
“Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake.” Luke 6:22
What the book says · Chapter 22, The Mountain of Arts & Entertainment: Engaging Culture Through Creative Expression
“Behind the scenes, personalization cleanses the industry of dissent. Actors, directors, and writers who express traditional views face the cancellation dynamic. An individual is targeted, past statements are amplified, and he is polarized as unsafe. The result is a monoculture. Conservative talent learns to self-censor or leaves, and the writers' room becomes an echo chamber where radical assumptions are never tested, which produces content increasingly detached from the public it is made for.”
From Rules for Radical Christians, quoted exactly.
What the law generally says
A publishing agreement is generally a private contract, and free speech protections against the government usually do not restrain a private company's choice of what to print. Many book contracts contain a morals or conduct clause, a termination provision, and terms covering advances and the reversion of rights, and those terms often decide the whole question. Employment discrimination law in the United States generally requires employers to consider religion, but most authors are contracted rather than employed, which often places them outside those protections. Some states also have laws touching lawful off-duty conduct or political and religious expression, and a few have contract rules that limit how vaguely a termination clause can be applied. What applies to you turns on your state and on the words of your agreement, which is what Ask looks up.
The words to use
"Please send me in writing the decision and the specific clause of our agreement you are relying on. My view of marriage is the historic Christian one, it is the same view I held when we signed, and I am not going to state otherwise — which provision of the contract does holding it violate?"
Your move
- Ask for the termination or cancellation in writing, including the clause they are citing and the effective date. Do not accept it by phone only.
- Pull out your contract and read the termination, morals or conduct, advance repayment, and reversion of rights sections before you reply to anything.
- Send the written reply above. Keep it short, factual, and free of accusation. Make them answer the question about the clause.
- Have a contract attorney licensed in your state read the agreement and any release before you sign it, especially if it contains a non-disparagement or confidentiality term.
- Start lining up where the work goes next — independent presses and direct distribution exist, and the manuscript is still yours to place once rights revert.
- Document the timeline: dates of calls, names of who said what, and every email. Save it off the company's systems.
- Ask specifically for a written reversion of rights and a final royalty accounting. Those two things matter more later than an apology does.
- Do not overstate what happened in public. One exaggeration hands them the only weapon that works permanently against you.
Your situation, your state
This page is the general answer. Describe what is actually happening to you and Ask returns the answer for your situation and your state, with the law looked up and the exact words to use. Your first ask is free.
Ask about your situationNot legal advice. When it stops being a conversation, a lawyer licensed in your state is the next call.