A satanic "nativity" display involving an occult statue erected on Concord city property near the New Hampshire State Capitol was destroyed shortly after several vandalism incidents last week. Now, Democratic state Rep. Ellen Read is saying that the temple "probably should" get to erect a new display in its place.

"I think they probably should, because I think the vandalism and the hatefulness shouldn’t go without a response. But it’s up to them," Read said, the Catholic News Agency reported.

Read told the outlet she came up with the idea to suggest that The Satanic Temple (TST) put up the Christmas display, which was a statue of Baphomet – despite significant pushback from local officials – arguing that a Catholic groups' Nativity scene of Jesus should not be the only decoration there. She also said she is a member of TST but has not participated in any of its meetings or events. 

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According to its website, TST's mission "Is To Encourage Benevolence And Empathy, Reject Tyrannical Authority, Advocate Practical Common Sense, Oppose Injustice, And Undertake Noble Pursuits."

"We have publicly confronted hate groups, fought for the abolition of corporal punishment in public schools, applied for equal representation when religious installations are placed on public property, provided religious exemption and legal protection against laws that unscientifically restrict people's reproductive autonomy, exposed harmful pseudo-scientific practitioners in mental health care, organized clubs alongside other religious after-school clubs in schools besieged by proselytizing organizations, and engaged in other advocacy in accordance with our tenets," the website states. 

Avoiding a legal dispute over the First Amendment, the Concord City Council approved the organization's permit to show the display, despite the mayor saying earlier this week he wished the city had not approved it. 

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"I opposed the permit because I believe the request was made not in the interest of promoting religious equity but in order to drive an anti-religious political agenda, and because I do not respond well to legal extortion, the threat of litigation," Concord Mayor Byron Champlin said during the council's meeting last Monday. "Some on social media have celebrated the Satanic Temple’s display as a victory for religious pluralism and a reflection of our growing diversity as a community. I disagree with this. This is about an out-of-state organization cynically promoting its national agenda at the expense of the Concord community."

Meanwhile, the city put out a statement saying that due to the First Amendment and the potential for a lawsuit, the city was forced to choose between banning all holiday displays or allowing TST's statue.

"After reviewing its legal options, the City ultimately decided to continue the policy of allowing unattended displays at City Plaza during this holiday season and to allow the statue," the city said in a statement. "It is anticipated that the City Council will review next year whether permits for unattended holiday displays should be allowed at City Plaza."

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Read rebuked the mayor in an interview with the Catholic news outlet this week, saying, "I think it’s the narrow-mindedness of the mayor, who can’t seem to wrap his head around that this represents a large percentage of the community and its beliefs."

In a video posted to Facebook, two TST representatives unveiled the statue Monday. One spokesperson recalled the group's core tenets, before chanting, "Hail Satan!" and showcasing the statue. 

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Concord Deputy Police Chief John Thomas told a local news outlet that the investigation into who vandalized TST's property is ongoing. 

TST has erected several holiday displays near city or state properties, often alongside traditional Christian exhibits, in recent years. In 2022, the Illinois chapter of TST installed a holiday display in the state Capitol rotunda, which featured a crocheted serpent atop a book and a pile of apples. In December 2023, the Iowa TST chapter set up a Baphomet statue at the state Capitol, which was also vandalized shortly after its placement. 

As FBI Director Christopher Wray is slated to resign after seven years of service in his 10-year tenure, questions about the bureau's "political motivation" have been reignited, with critics like President-elect Trump citing bias in domestic terrorism and civil rights probes.

While Wray, who was appointed by Trump in his first term, has faced scrutiny from conservatives for a kind of political bias in the bureau, FBI whistleblower Kyle Seraphin said the FBI's shift toward politicized agendas within its field offices began in the post-9/11 era when sweeping reforms and surveillance powers were granted to the agency.

"What people are seeing is the natural outgrowth of letting FBI agents, or FBI senior management, forecast what they think the crime is going to be in the country, being incentivized to be correct, because they're going to be paid a monetary bonus at the end of it if they're right, and then they go out and find that crime," Seraphin told Fox News Digital.

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"And so it looks very politicized," he added. "But I think that's actually just a mistake of the correlation. In reality, what's going on is the FBI is serving the interests of the senior management, which is that they want to get paid, and the easiest way to get paid is to go round up MAGA people, which they fall under this category of … anti-government, anti-authority, violent extremists."

Over the last four years, the FBI has increased its focus on domestic terrorism, particularly targeting white supremacist activities. The agency's caseload more than doubled from about 1,000 to 2,700 investigations between spring 2020 and September 2021, according to the Government Accountability Office. FBI Director Christopher Wray testified in September 2020 that white supremacy constitutes the largest domestic terrorism category.

Critics, however, have questioned the FBI's definition of domestic terrorism. Seraphin said a New Mexico field office prioritized "anti-abortion extremists" as the state’s third-highest national security threat. Separately over the summer, a Texas doctor was charged with four felonies for exposing alleged transgender surgeries on children at a hospital.

"Everybody assumes that it's about politics because the FBI has some really politically motivated leads," Seraphin said. "The current deputy director, Paul Abbate, is very politically motivated, and he's very hard leading to the left."

Seraphin blamed the FBI's seemingly political bias on an integrated program management, a McKinsey & Company-designed system rewarding executives with large bonuses for meeting self-set metrics, including domestic extremism and terrorism.

In December 2023, the House Judiciary Committee released a report titled "The FBI's Breach of Religious Freedom: The Weaponization of Law Enforcement Against Catholic Americans." The report followed Seraphin’s disclosure of an FBI memo labeling certain Catholic Americans as potential violent extremists.

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"They use national security words to go after domestic individuals, and they have national security tools to look through your email to grab access to your comms, your phone calls, your text messages, your emails and so on," Seraphin said. "They have the ability to look into your bank account and check out your financial records. And should they find evidence of a crime that is not related to what they're searching for, the threat that they're actually looking for?"

"Do we want people to get away with crime? No, but we want the government to be accountable to the freaking Bill of Rights," Seraphin said.

In a December interview on NBC's "Meet the Press," Trump said, "I can't say I'm thrilled with him," when asked if he would fire Wray upon entering his second non-consecutive presidential term. 

"He invaded my home," Trump said, referencing the FBI's 2022 search of his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida. Trump announced at the end of November his nomination of Kash Patel – a Trump ally and previous chief of staff to the secretary of defense – as the next FBI director. Patel has been critical of the FBI's handling of investigations relating to Trump.

Seraphin, who said he has spoken to Patel about the bureau, said he may be "the most qualified" nominee for the role.

"He understands what the FBI does to directors in order to maintain their status quo," Seraphin said. "That makes him a very potentially disruptive force to the status quo. But I actually think he'll be if he's able to achieve the things that he said, which is going out there and rooting out the corruption, taking away the political things, making sure that the FBI is subservient to the Constitution."

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Wray made his resignation announcement during an FBI virtual town hall from Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, during which thousands of FBI employees across the country were expected to attend online.

"After weeks of careful thought, I’ve decided the right thing for the bureau is for me to serve until the end of the current administration in January and then step down," Wray said during the town hall. "My goal is to keep the focus on our mission: the indispensable work you’re doing on behalf of the American people every day. In my view, this is the best way to avoid dragging the bureau deeper into the fray while reinforcing the values and principles that are so important to how we do our work."

Wray also said his focus is and always has been on the FBI doing what is right.

"When you look at where the threats are headed, it’s clear that the importance of our work – keeping Americans safe and upholding the Constitution – will not change. And what absolutely cannot, must not, change is our commitment to doing the right thing, the right way, every time," Wray said. 

Fox News Digital reached out to the FBI but did not hear back by the publication deadline.

Fox News Digital's Greg Wehner and David Spunt contributed to this report.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday heard oral arguments in a high-profile case regarding whether states can ban minors from receiving gender transition medical care under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, a closely-watched case that could impact the care and treatment for young people in at least half of U.S. states.

Conservative justices on the Supreme Court appeared reluctant during Wednesday's oral arguments to overturn Senate Bill 1, the Tennessee law in question, with Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh suggesting that state legislatures, rather than courts, are best equipped to regulate medical procedures. The Constitution leaves such questions "to the people's representatives," Roberts noted Wednesday, rather than to nine justices on the Supreme Court, "none of whom is a doctor." 

Justice Samuel Alito, for his part, cited "overwhelming evidence" from certain medical studies listing the negative consequences from adolescents that underwent gender transition treatments. Should the justices rule along party lines to uphold the lower court's decision, it will have sweeping implications for more than 20 U.S. states that have moved to implement similar laws.

The case in question, United States v. Skrmetti, centers on a Tennessee law that bans gender-transition treatments for minors in the state. The law, passed in March 2023, also takes aim at health care providers in Tennessee who continue to provide gender-transition treatments to transgender minors, opening them up to fines, lawsuits and other liability.  

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At issue in the case is whether Tennessee's Senate Bill 1, which "prohibits all medical treatments intended to allow 'a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor's sex' or to treat 'purported discomfort or distress from a discordance between the minor's sex and asserted identity,'" violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Wednesday's oral arguments marked the first time the Supreme Court considered restrictions on puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgery for minors. However, it also comes as many other states have moved to ban or restrict medical treatments and procedures for transgender adolescents, placing outsize focus on the case and on oral arguments Wednesday, as observers closely watched the back-and-forth for clues as to how the court might rule. 

Petitioners in the case were represented by the Biden administration and the ACLU, which sued to overturn the Tennessee law on behalf of the parents of three transgender adolescents and a Memphis-based doctor.

At issue during Wednesday's oral arguments was the level of scrutiny that courts should use to evaluate the constitutionality of state bans on transgender medical treatment for minors, such as SB1, and whether these laws are considered discriminating on the basis of sex or against a "quasi-suspect class," thus warranting a higher level of scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. 

Both sides continued to battle over the level of scrutiny that the court should apply in reviewing laws involving transgender care for minors, including SB1. 

Petitioners argued that the court should use the test of heightened scrutiny, which requires states to identify an important objective that the law helps accomplish, while the state of Tennessee reiterated its claim that the rational basis test, or the most deferential test that was applied by the 6th Circuit Court in reviewing SB1, is sufficient. 

Petitioners, represented by U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, argued that SB1 discriminates against individuals on the basis of sex, which itself warrants a heightened level of scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause. They argued that SB1 "categorically bans treatment when, and only when, it’s consistent with the patient’s birth sex." 

In Tennessee, petitioners argued, the way that the sex-based classification works is that, "from the standpoint of any individual who wants to take these medications, their sex determines whether SB1 applies."

Prelogar cited one of the unnamed petitioners in the case, whom she referred to only as John Doe. Doe "wants to take puberty blockers to undergo a typical male puberty. But SB1 says that because John sex at birth was female, he can't have access to those medications," Prelogar argued. "And if you change his sex, then the restriction under SB1 lifts, and it changes the result."

Petitioners also sought to assuage concerns raised by justices about the ability of states to pass legislation protecting minors, so long as the test meets a higher standard of scrutiny. 

Pressed by Justice Brett Kavanaugh on the impact the ruling could have on other states, Prelogar responded by noting that the court could write a very narrow opinion that states only that when a law prohibits conduct that is "inconsistent with sex, that is a sex baseline, so you do have to apply heightened scrutiny."

"But the court has made clear that that's an intermediate standard," Prelogar said. "And if the state can come forward with an important interest and substantiate that it needed to draw those sex baselines to substantially serve the interest," it would still be permitted.

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Respondents for the state of Tennessee argued Wednesday that SB1 was designed to protect minors from what they described as "risky and unproven medical interventions." 

The state, represented by Tennessee Solicitor General Matthew Rice, argued that SB1 draws a "purpose-based line, not a sex-based line," thus failing to meet the necessary requirement to trigger heightened scrutiny. 

The law, Rice said, turns "entirely on medical purposes, not a patient’s sex." The only way petitioners can point to a sex-based line, he argued, "is to equate fundamentally different medical treatments." 

"Giving testosterone to a boy with a deficiency is not the same treatment as giving it to a girl who has psychological distress associated with her body," Rice said.

Still, respondents faced tough questioning from justices on the classification and application of SB1. 

On issues of classification, Justice Kentaji Brown Jackson cited parallels to the race-based case of Loving v. Virginia, which overturned Virginia's law forbidding marriage between persons of different racial categories; in that case, a White man and a Black woman.

She noted that under SB1, an individual can be prescribed puberty blockers or hormone treatments if doing so is consistent with their sex, but not if it is inconsistent, asking Rice, "So how are they different?"

Justice Elena Kagan asked Rice about the application of SB1, noting the text of SB1 and one of its articulated purposes, which is to "encourag[e] minors to appreciate their sex and to ban treatments ‘that might encourage minors to become disdainful of their sex.’"

"You’re spending a lot of time talking about what the classification is here," Kagan told Rice. "And I think we've talked a good deal about that. But what produced this classification might be relevant to understanding what the classification is about."

Tennessee has argued that its law can still withstand even the test of heightened scrutiny, contending in its court brief that it does have "compelling interests" to protect the health and safety of minors in the state and "in protecting the integrity and ethics of the medical profession."

The controversial case comes at a time in Washington when Republicans are set to take control of the White House, hold the House and regain the Senate, giving them a greater influence on the composition of the federal courts.

The court is expected to rule on U.S. v. Skrmetti before July 2025.