Olivia McConnell is only eight years old, but she's already helped introduce a bill to the legislature of her home state of South Carolina, which will name the woolly mammoth as the official state fossil if it's passed.
However, an unexpected challenge to her proposal has arisen in the form of two Republican state senators, Sen. Kevin Bryant and Sen. Mike Fair, who want to amend her bill to make it clear that God created the fossils by adding text from the Bible's book of Genesis.
"I think it's very important that we acknowledge the Creator when we're acknowledging some of his wonderful creations. I don't have a problem acknowledging the Wooly Mammoth as a state fossil," Bryant said, according to Fox Carolina.
Lt. Governor Glenn McConnell, who is not related to Olivia, ruled Bryan's proposed amendment out of order because it introduced a new subject. Bryant proceeded to revise his amendment to describe the Columbian Mammoth “as created on the Sixth Day with the beasts of the field," according to The Daily Beast.
Sen. Mike Fair jumped into the fray on the side of Bryant, placing an objection on the bill. Fair has previously gone on record as saying “To teach that natural selection is the answer to origins is wrong," and has blocked South Carolina from adopting newer education standards on the teaching of evolution.
According to The State, McConnell said that she thinks that South Carolina should have a state fossil because:
1. One of the first discoveries of a vertebrae fossil in North America was on an S.C. plantation when slaves dug up wooly mammoth teeth from a swamp in 1725.
2. All but seven states have an official state fossil.
3. “Fossils tell us about our past.”
Bryant and Fair's proposed amendments have stalled the bill, freezing McConnell's innocent efforts. No word yet on when this legislative ice age is expected to thaw.
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