BATON ROUGE, LA – Liberty Counsel filed a lawsuit against the City of Baton Rouge on behalf of bi-vocational Pastor Luke Ash who was unlawfully fired from his job as a library technician for refusing to lie and use false gender pronouns. The complaint states that the East Baton Rouge Parish Library specifically terminated Pastor Ash because his religious beliefs prevented him from using “preferred” male pronouns to refer to a female coworker. Pastor Ash contends that the library’s “Inclusivity Policy” requiring such usage violated his First Amendment religious rights and that the library failed to engage in the Title VII religious accommodation process before firing him.

Liberty Counsel is seeking a permanent injunction that declares the library’s “Inclusivity Policy” is unconstitutional for violating his constitutional rights of free speech, religious exercise, equal protection, the Louisiana Preservation of Religious Freedom Act, as well as his religious protections under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The lawsuit also requests that the court order the library to reinstate Pastor Ash to his prior position, restore his benefits, and award backpay, damages, and attorney’s fees and costs.

In addition to the city and the East Baton Rouge Parish Library, the lawsuit also names the Metropolitan Council and the Library Board of Control for the City of East Baton Rouge.

In July 2025, a coworker asked Pastor Ash whether he would use male pronouns for a biological female trainee. As a Christian minister, Pastor Ash holds religious beliefs that biological sex is immutable and that being complicit in a known lie would compromise those convictions, and so he told the coworker that he could not do so. Shortly thereafter, his supervisors reiterated that the “Inclusivity Policy” states “all employees have the right to be addressed by their chosen name and pronouns.” When questioned, Pastor Ash told his supervisors that he was not going to lie and needed an accommodation. 

On July 10, 2025, his supervisors informed him that he was being terminated because his religious beliefs were incompatible with employment at the library.

“Defendants terminated [Pastor Ash] solely on the basis of his articulated religious beliefs and need for an accommodation. It was thus the sole motivating factor in their termination of his employment,” reads the lawsuit. “Defendants neither engaged nor requested to engage in any interactive accommodation process.”

The complaint concludes that Pastor Ash’s firing violated the First Amendment because it was retaliation for his protected speech, an attempted compulsion to speak the government’s preferred viewpoint, and viewpoint discrimination for “disqualifying” a person’s religious beliefs from protection and employment. 

Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “The East Baton Rouge Parish Library violated the U.S. Constitution and Louisiana law for requiring Pastor Ash to refer to a female employee by masculine pronouns and then firing him for upholding his religious beliefs. The library also violated Title VII for not even considering a religious accommodation for Pastor Ash. There is no compelling interest in requiring Pastor Ash to lie or affirm false sex-based pronouns. Employers cannot force people to choose between their faith and their livelihood.”

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