Eight-year-old Olivia McConnell’s idea to have the woolly mammoth become the state fossil of South Carolina is being blocked by two senators, who want to amend the proposed bill to emphasize God created all creatures.

When eight-year-old Olivia McConnell was perusing a menu at a restaurant that features all 50 of the official symbols of her home state of South Carolina, she noticed a glaring vacancy. South Carolina has a State American Folk Dance, a State Grass, a State Opera, even a State Lowcountry Handcraft, but-no offense to square dancing, Indian grass, Porgy and Bess, or sweet grass baskets intended-McConnell thought something was missing: a state fossil.

The third grader at Carolina Academy wrote a letter to her state lawmakers, Rep. Robert Ridgeway and Sen. Kevin Johnson, in a bid to give the woolly mammoth that honor. Olivia has sound reasons behind her nomination: One of the first discoveries of a fossil in North America was that of a woolly mammoth’s teeth, dug up by slaves on a South Carolina plantation in 1725; all but seven states have an official state fossil; and, most adorably, ‘Fossils tell us about our past.”

Unfortunately for McConnell’s proposal, a pair of state senators with views as […]