By Will Hall, Baptist Message executive editor
BATON ROUGE, La. (LBM) – Luke Ash, the bivocational pastor of Stevendale Baptist Church in Baton Rouge, was fired, July 10, as a library technician by the East Baton Rouge Parish Library because he declined to use pronouns with another library employee that did not reflect her biological sex.
Speaking to a crowd of pastors, July 17, Ash indicated he was not looking for a fight, but that using male pronouns in speaking to a female coworker would have conflicted with his belief in the biblical truth about God’s creation of male and female and consequently would have been a lie.
NATIONAL ISSUE
The matter has erupted nationally with the chief executive of the state, Gov. Jeff Landry, and its top law enforcement officer, Attorney General Liz Murril, weighing in with concern.
In response to a social media post about Pastor Ash, Landry wrote on X, July 16, “Louisianans should never lose their job because they refuse to lie! Louisiana is the real world, and in the real world, preferred pronouns don’t exist— only biological ones!”
Murrill added her thoughts on X, July 17, writing, “Louisiana isn’t New York or California. State law prohibits discrimination based on religion in the workplace, especially as a public employee in a taxpayer funded public library. In Louisiana – Christians have rights just like everyone else.”
Even U.S. Department of Justice Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon expressed disbelief on X, July 15, with the simple statement, “What?!!”
The issue was first brought to national attention, July 15, by Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a Washington, D.C.-based pro-family research and education nonprofit, in a YouTube interview with Ash. Perkins is a Louisiana native, a former state representative and a Louisiana Baptist pastor.
Libs of TikTok, a conservative social media influencer with 4.3 million followers on X, posted a portion of Perkins’ interview with Ash, and as of July 18, the X post has been viewed more than 537.4K times. Meanwhile, American Spectator and The Washington Stand, both large conservative media outlets, have run feature stories.
Perkins hosted a breakfast in Baton Rouge, July 17, and Ash was a guest speaker to the crowd of pastors and elected officials in attendance.
LUKE ASH
Ash drove big rigs in Fort Wayne, Indiana, until he became pastor of Stevendale Baptist Church, when he sought a local job to provide stability in his service to the small congregation and to create a source of income for his family with retirement and health benefits. He was hired by the East Baton Rouge Library about three months ago, and although he was concerned about some of the library policies he had discovered, by his account he stayed focused on doing a good job for the library.
Ash shared an email with the Baptist Message that he sent, July 10, to City of Baton Rouge/Parish of East Baton Rouge Mayor-President Sid Edwards, outlining the events surrounding his firing and other concerns.
“I was fired today for refusing to use preferred pronouns,” Ash wrote, detailing how on July 7 a coworker, who was training a new female hire, attempted to force Ash to refer to the trainee as a “he.”
He said the next day he was reprimanded by three other EBRPL employees “for not upholding the library’s inclusivity policy by refusing to use preferred pronouns,” and was told that “upper management” would decide “how the library would proceed.”
His dismissal followed on July 10.
He described the library as “not a hospitable place for a Christian or someone who is politically conservative to work,” and offered to talk with Edwards about EBRPL’s “clearly partisan and discriminatory” practices.
Ash shared with the Baptist Message that he did not speak with the trainee, explaining that his conversation was only with the trainer.
PASTORS RESPOND
Lewis Richerson, pastor of Woodlawn Baptist Church, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on behalf of 30 pastors who signed a letter, spoke on July 17 to the East Baton Rouge Parish Library Board of Control members, asking the library to rehire Pastor Luke Ash, Stevendale Baptist Church, Baton Rouge, and to eliminate DEI policies that led to his firing as a library technician. Photo by Peyton Robert
David L. Goza, pastor of Jefferson Baptist Church in Baton Rouge and the president of the Louisiana Baptist Convention, and Lewis Richerson, pastor of Woodlawn Baptist Church in Baton Rouge, drafted a letter that they distributed during the July 17 breakfast for pastors to sign. The document cited the firing as “a violation of religious liberty,” “a First Amendment crisis,” “a dangerous precedent,” and called for Ash to be rehired and the elimination of the “DEI-directed policies that led to his termination.”
A group of pastors subsequently attended the EBRPL Board of Control meeting that evening to deliver the letter. However, when Richerson attempted to speak to the firing and the letter, he was ruled out of order for not addressing an item on the agenda, even though he couched his presentation in context of the budget, a major presentation during the meeting, and its support of discriminatory practices and a perverse culture.
Richerson said that “public dollars should not fund ideological coercion or religious discrimination” and that Ash’s firing “was not just unnecessary—it was wrong.”
“We expect public institutions to serve all people—including those with traditional religious convictions. If the current budget sustains policies that exclude faithful Christians from public service, then the budget is part of the problem,” he said above attempts by the board chair and other members to shout him down.
“God’s Word says, ‘Woe to those who call evil good and good evil’ (Isaiah 5:20). By requiring employees to use pronouns that reject the created order—male and female as made by God—the library has not only acted unjustly but has rebelled against the truth of God Himself,” he concluded.
Afterward, pastors offered copies of the letter to the board members and left.
LAGNIAPPE
During the library board meeting, EBRPL staff reported that the library’s receipts were more than five percent ahead of last year due to better-than-expected tax collections. A board member also commented about an upcoming vote on the millage (one dollar of tax on every thousand dollars of assessed property value) that supports the East Baton Rouge Parish Library.
The library system’s finances have been a source of public debate after multiple years of budget surpluses, and in March, Edwards led the proposed restructuring of the library’s funds to redirect, one time, about $52 million of $92 million in library reserve funds to the city/parish. Also, in future years the city’s general fund will receive 2.8 of the library’s 11.1-mill property tax. The Louisiana State Bond Commission approved his plan on July 17, the same day as the pastors’ breakfast and the EBRPL Board of Control meeting, and the proposed funding changes go to the voters in November.
Meanwhile, Ash urged the mayor-president to consider even more drastic budget actions, asking Edwards to exert his influence to “reform” the EBRPL or “defund” them.
