Jonathan P. Baird lives in Wilmot.

In a little-discussed move, on Dec. 17, outgoing Gov. Chris Sununu withdrew the nomination of Mindy Atwood to be New Hampshire State Librarian. He said he would leave the decision of who would be the state librarian to the new governor, Kelly Ayotte.

Sununu’s decision reeked of the political cowardice that is typical of Republicans in 2025. They are usually bowing to Trump no matter how outrageous his behavior but in this situation, Sununu caved to pressure from the Christian right not to select Atwood. Nothing could be less libertarian or in keeping with the best New Hampshire values.

Sununu was responding to objections centered on Atwood’s advocacy against book censorship. Why aren’t libertarians up in arms about free expression and students’ rights to read? Why do students need censors from the government? Can’t students decide what they want to read without “protection?”

When Atwood applied for the job she wrote, “I deeply believe in the mission of public libraries to provide free and equal access to public information for everyone.” Atwood is entirely qualified for the position of state librarian. She is the former director of Abbott/Sunapee Library and for the last two years, she was the administrator of library operations at the New Hampshire State Library. She is widely supported by librarians around New Hampshire.

So why did Sununu yank her nomination? To the extent any reason was presented, we heard there was opposition from far-right Executive Councilor David Wheeler (R-Milford). Sununu apparently believed the Executive Council wouldn’t support Atwood. Wheeler had said Atwood was “too woke” and was quoted on NHPR saying that Atwood had given presentations on behalf of regional and national library associations challenging censorship. How wild! A librarian who opposed censorship!

Wheeler said, “It was her involvement and the state library’s involvement in opposing parents from keeping their kids from seeing pornography in libraries. She was fighting parents to have any type of choice over what the kids can see.”

This has a very familiar ring to it. It sounds exactly like what the group Moms for Liberty was up to in Florida. They were about protecting students from material they deemed “inappropriate.” In the case of Mindy Atwood, it was not about any particular books she favored for inclusion in libraries, including anything categorized as pornography.

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The retiring state librarian, Michael York, has pointed out that under New Hampshire state law, the state librarian has no authority over what materials schools and libraries acquire and provide.

We need to see the larger context of the effort to stop people like Mindy Atwood from being state librarian. Looking around, it is not hard to decipher. Lurking out of sight, Christian nationalists favor book banning and not just of books they deem pornography. They are overwhelmingly preoccupied with sexual order and with opposing LGBTQ books. They have consistently tried to ban books that included characters of color that featured themes of race and racism.

The Christian nationalists are modern-day Anthony Comstocks. They favor promoting a particular variant of Christianity and they see themselves as fighting for salvation against the forces of darkness. They have a cherry-picked, narrow-minded perspective masquerading as a biblical worldview.

Fundamentally, they are about inserting reactionary religion into public schools. While many see them as a cultural force opposing abortion and same-sex marriage, I see the Christian nationalists as a political movement. They have created a fictionalized version of American history based on the myth that America was founded as a Christian nation. They don’t support pluralistic democracy.

Rescinding Mindy Atwood’s nomination should not be seen as an isolated event. It fits in a national book-banning narrative.

Book banners have become increasingly active across the country. PEN America, a non-profit that supports freedom of expression in literature, reported 3,362 book bans affecting 1,557 unique titles in the 2022-23 school year. Its newest data, released in November 2024, showed the number of book bans skyrocketed to over 10,000 in the 2023-2024 school year, with Florida and Iowa accounting for over 8,000 of them.

The conflict between secular Enlightenment values and fundamentalist religion goes back to America’s beginnings and it continues. As a mainstream librarian, Atwood reflects the secular side of the conflict. Fundamentalism doesn’t adapt to any secular knowledge that conflicts with its brand of revealed religious truth. Free expression and the right to read widely and freely will never be tolerated by the Christian nationalists. They are control freaks.

Being from New England and being inheritors of the tradition of Thoreau and Emerson, it is appropriate that we are sensitive to the anti-intellectualism embedded in rescinding Atwood’s nomination.

What pornography are the Christian nationalists assuming Atwood would allow? Is it a passage from Daniel Defoe’s “Moll Flanders,” Henry Miller’s “Tropic of Cancer,” or E.L. James’ “50 Shades of Grey”? Is it “Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe or “All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M. Johnson? Those last two are among the most challenged and banned books.

Inevitably, the censoring is subjective. One person’s pornography is another person’s literature. Maybe it is just me but when I was a kid, I would have wanted to read anything forbidden. That would have catapulted to the top of what I wanted to read.

It is worth pointing out that there is little evidence showing a relationship between reading edgy books and negative outcomes. Protecting the right to read is not anti-parent. I would worry that we would have a few parents with a certain worldview determining whether or not books could be available in the library.

There is no good reason why Gov. Ayotte could not re-nominate Mindy Atwood to be state librarian. As noted, she has all the qualifications. The reasons given for rescinding her nomination are lame.