(Citizens for a New Louisiana) — People often ask, “What does government transparency have to do with all this library drama?” It’s a fair question. Our primary mission has always been to follow the money, tracking how taxpayer dollars are spent and sounding the alarm when something’s off.

We did that in the public library space years ago when we discovered vulgar books being shelved in the library’s children’s section. Not only were these materials erotic and pornographic, but your tax dollars were purchasing them! That’s what got our attention early. Why would anyone approve the use of taxpayer funds to buy vulgar books that no one wanted to read? We know this because our friends in the various library systems tell us no one is checking out these books.

The reason is quite simple: no one wants to buy books that promote a woke agenda. Perhaps it’s better to say that they don’t want to spend their own money on it. Even JK Rowling, probably the most successful children’s author of all time, has come to this same realization. She recently said, “I had this crazy idea the other day: someone should write books kids actually want to read as opposed to barely-fictionalised manifestos written to appeal to fellow adult activists.” The sad truth is: no one in the real world is buying these books. But your government is.

Nobody’s Buying their Books, Weird Ideas, or Distasteful Agenda

Everyone knows those woke manifestos aren’t being sold to regular people. However, the public treasury is flush with cash, and the Conservative movement has largely forgotten about small-ball boards and commissions. Spending money when no one is looking is easy. And so they choose to spend your money to fund woke activists who want to indoctrinate your kids into their weird woke lifestyle.

They worm their way into local government and attempt to turn them into Leftist mini-utopias. They talk about “office culture” as if they were running their own mini-country. These tolerant types are only tolerant of those like themselves, but not of anyone else. If you disagree with their misguided ideas, you’re simply a bigot or a Nazi, and that label (that they arbitrarily applied to fill-in-the-blank) is simply not to be tolerated in their version of a civilized society.

Most of them probably attended the latest No Kings rally to protest Donald Trump’s stripping of funding for things like transgender surgery for children and free everything for illegals. They’re easy to spot in the wild, too: anorexic or obese (but rarely in between), unkempt, unruly, and unsightly. As Mark Levin once quipped, “You know… the Rosie O’Donnell look.”

East Baton Rouge Christian Library Employee Fired for Refusing to Use Preferred Pronouns

And that brings us to the East Baton Rouge Public Library. Late last week, one of the rare Christian Library employees was fired for “not fitting in with the office culture.” What does that mean? “Oh, you know, the pronouns thing.” It turns out that one of the few Christian Conservatives who works in a public library system was ostracized for his faith, even though the current library policy says:

the Library provides an atmosphere in which all employees are welcomed, accepted, and respected, regardless of age, gender identity or expression, race, social, economic, and ethnic background, sexual preference, religious preference, and any other distinguishing characteristic.

The conflicting policy then states that every employee has the “right” to be addressed by their preferred pronouns, and presumably, for men to wear dresses and enter the women’s restrooms. If an employee isn’t okay with going along with that, they can be (and now have been) fired for “not fitting in with the office culture.”

While the library claims to welcome employees of all faiths, its own pronouns policy forces staff to affirm gender identities they may not believe in. That contradiction just cost Luke Ash his job.

Legal Jeopardy?

We’ve all been watching as our legislature has taken this issue on systematically. In 2023, Dodie Horton authored HB466 and Raymond Crews authored HB81 to address the issue of preferred pronoun indoctrination in our school system. Democrat Governor John Bel Edwards vetoed both of them. Then, in 2024, Raymond Crews ratcheted up HB121, which even more aggressively addressed schools that engage in this horrible practice.

Although HB121 only applies to public K–12 schools, Louisiana Revised Statute 23:332 already prohibits discrimination based on religion in any workplace, including government jobs like those in public libraries.

§332. Intentional discrimination in employment.

A. It shall be unlawful discrimination in employment for an employer to engage in any of the following practices:

(1) Intentionally fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to intentionally discriminate against any individual with respect to compensation, or terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of the individual’s race, color, religion, sex, national origin, or natural, protective, or cultural hairstyle.

(2) Intentionally limit, segregate, or classify employees or applicants for employment in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities, or otherwise adversely affect the individual’s status as an employee, because of the individual’s race, color, religion, sex, national origin, or natural, protective, or cultural hairstyle.

Someone reading through that text carefully will notice the library’s conflicting policies are not derived from state law. While Louisiana protects someone’s religious beliefs, it does not protect gender identity, orientation, or preferred pronouns. This could be a big problem for these woke activists turned government bureaucrats.

The EBR Public Library Could Be In a Lot of Trouble

Based on our limited research, the EBR Public Library’s polices have contributed to actions that expose the taxpayers to legal liability. What’s interesting is that the Library Board of Control supposedly voted to approve this new pronouns policy in November of 2022. Despite the policy being dated November 17, 2022, there’s no clear record in that date’s official minutes that a pronouns policy was ever discussed, much less approved. It appears to have been quietly slipped in to the policy manual, omnibus style, by then-director Spencer Watts. That alone raises serious accountability concerns.

This is one of the big problems with most oversight boards. They assume that the Director they hired is acting in the best interest of the board, the parish governing authority, and ultimately the taxpayers. We should know by now that libraries are different. Historically speaking, we’ve seen the directors and their boards at odds, especially when it comes to shelving erotic books in the children’s section. That’s been such a big issue that most boards haven’t been able to get to more nuanced issues, like woke propaganda and “micro-aggressions” against Christians.

We’ve waited years for the moment that forces this debate back into the spotlight. That moment is now. Luke Ash’s firing may finally force us to answer a tough question: what are our libraries really doing with our tax dollars, and who exactly are they working for?