Republican Governor Rick Perry has reappointed young earth creationist Don McLeroy as chairman of the Texas State Board of Education.

State Board of Education Chairman Don McLeroy was reappointed to a new, two-year term by Gov. Rick Perry on Friday. McLeroy, a Republican from College Station, has been on the board for nearly a decade and is one of seven members closely aligned with social conservatives.

McLeroy, a dentist, was on the losing end of a controversial board vote last month to scrap a longtime state requirement that high school teachers cover so-called “weaknesses” in the theory of evolution in science classes. McLeroy was successful in getting the board to adopt a weaker rule backed by evolution critics that says students must consider the “sufficiency or insufficiency” of Charles Darwin’s tenet that living things have common ancestors. Science teacher groups will try to eliminate that requirement in a final board vote on new science curriculum standards in March.

Apparently, in Texas you can be astoundingly dishonest and advocate teaching pseudo-science to children, and still be reappointed to a job you’re not remotely qualified to hold.

It’s one of the GOP’s biggest problems, and it isn’t only happening in Texas. The religious far right is intent on dragging the Republican Party back into the Dark Ages.