Publisher Lumps Homosexuality in with Rape and Pedophilia

In the course of my communications with other writers and publishers, I came across recently the submission guidelines for Wild Rose Press. The guidelines were pretty typical, until I came to this:

"Please note the elements that we do not accept within any of our lines:

No depraved or illegal acts

Hero and Heroine should not be already married to one another except in certain circumstances such as marriage of convenience.

Heroine and Hero should not be married to other people when they begin their relationship.

No bestiality

No degradation of women (rape)

No pedophilia* (no sex involving underage characters)

No homosexuality** (our romances celebrate heterosexual monogamous relationships)"

Now, publishers are a private entity and have every right to publish the books they want to publish. What I object to is lumping homosexuals in with child molesters, people who have sex with animals, rapists, and others who engage in "depraved or illegal acts".

That's just bad manners. And it's wholesale categorizing like this that makes it difficult for gay people to get the equality they deserve. So, while I am not advocating Wild Rose Press begin accepting GLBT submissions, I am encouraging them to modify their guidelines to remove the implication that gay people belong in the same category as the lowest members of society. Perhaps they could simply state that they want romance stories that involve heterosexual couples and that do not include adultery, rape, beastiality, or pedophilia. That way, they don't even have to bring "us" up at all.

Nix Winter, a writer of just the kind of stories that Wild Rose Press, would shun, said it better than I ever could: 

I looked at their guidelines... they don't want homosexual stories, so
pretty much everything I write is a poor fit for them.

I'm gender queer, sexually queer, probably queer in other ways...

and so are my characters.

I really just hate... it totally gets under my skin when guidelines are like

No Rape
No Bestiality
No Pedophilia
No Homosexuality


That's like...

No Murder
No Plague
No Human Sacrifice
No Freckles

It's not like they could take their ignorant selves and be like

No Blacks
No Retards
No Chinks
No Fags

That would obviously be wrong... offensive, but other wise 'nice' little
people feel it perfectly fine to lump who I am in with rapists, pedophiles
and dog humpers.

BLAH.

I had to applaud Nix, who voiced my own thoughts better than I ever could.