FRESNO (KMJ) — The Fresno Coalition of Interfaith Leaders is calling for the removal of Brooke Ashjian as the President of Fresno Unified’s School Board.
A group of local leaders collected outside the school district’s headquarters in Downtown Fresno to make their demands public.
“We are standing today in solidarity with our LGBT community, especially in the recent light of Brooke Ashjian – the board president – his comments conflating the LGBT community with the perpetrators of ethnic genocide,” announced Rev. Dr. Chris Breedlove, Pastor of Community United Church of Christ.
Also adding their names in support of the effort, Pastor of Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church Rev. Bill Knezovich, Bishop Sierra Pacific Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Mark W. Holmerud, United Church of Christ Clergy Rev. Dr. Norman Broadbent, retired Mennonite Community Church pastor Rev. Steve Ratzlaff, Wesley United Methodist Church’s Rev. Karen Stoffers-Pugh, the Diocese of Fresno’s Jim Grant, United Methodist Clergy’s Rev. Akiko Miyake-Stoner, Rev. Ara R. Guekguezian, Rabbi Rick Winer, Pastor of Unitarian Universalist Church of Fresno Rev. Tim Kutzmark, United Church of Christ Clergy Rev. Sophia DeWitt, and United Church of Christ Commissioned Minister of Christian Education Robin Carlson.
During the school board meeting Wednesday, Ashjian stated that his treatment by the LGBT community was like that of the Armenian people during the Ottoman Empire.
“To compare the LGBT community to mass murders is reprehensible. His remarks have done serious damage to the school board,” adds Breedlove. In response, Brooke
Ashjian says he is focused on his role as Fresno Unified School Board President so he does not have time to give it thought.
Hear the report from KMJ’s Dominic McAndrew as it aired:
