Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/YouTube/Getty
A retired Navy officer who was aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt on 9/11 was among the parents who spoke out against book banning at this week’s school board meeting in Martin County, Florida.
“Religious fanatics, who wouldn’t even let women be educated, flew planes into the World Trade Center and my Pentagon,” 54-year-old Wess Rexrode said. “I spent the last decade of my naval career fighting religious fascism abroad. I never thought I’d have to fight it right here in the United States of America.”
Rexrode was speaking specifically of those who used a new Florida law to have 92 books banned from the county’s public school classrooms and libraries. Books by Jodi Picoult and Toni Morrison were removed following an objection filed by a member of Moms for Liberty who had not even read them.