At the South Carolina GOP state convention yesterday, Karen Floyd was unanimously elected to lead the Republican Party: Floyd to lead GOP in S.C.

State Republicans elected Spartanburg businesswoman Karen Floyd to head the party at a state convention that underscored the divisions facing the GOP as it prepares for 2010 elections.

Floyd, who was unopposed, was elected unanimously. She said her 2006 loss running for state Superintendent of Education had motivated her, as well as national Democrats who had her seeing red.

“I have hope and excitement and a vision for our great party,” Floyd told the convention crowd.

Imagine my surprise, if you will, to discover that like almost every other top GOP politician, Floyd is a creationist who wants to teach “intelligent design” as science. Here’s an article she wrote for a far-right anti-public school website:

The Theory of Evolution is taught at most universities and colleges. Unfortunately, in most instances, the way it is being taught and presented in textbooks at both the college and high school level is as a set of incontrovertible beliefs. This does not positively serve the students of our state.

Theories are useful because they explain empirical evidence. The children of South Carolina need to understand the evidence that evolutionary theory explains, the evidence it doesn’t explain and the evidence that contradicts it. Our students need to understand the concerns that exist; not take any theory in science on blind faith.

There are a growing number of prominent scientists who are “poking around” in the foundations of evolutionary theory. Irreducible complexity is just one issue that causes heartburn for the evolutionists.

As science evolves, so do the opinions of the scientists. More and more scientists are publicly coming out in favor of an Intelligent Design Theory because that is what the evidence is telling them is true.

Long gone are the days when God was excluded from scientific circles. If we ignore that reality, we will only limit our children’s scientific knowledge.

Clearly, the theory of the politically-correct minority has been allowed to dominate our classrooms to the point where not only is evolution being taught as a scientific truth, but the public address system cannot be used to say a prayer for the safety of athletes before a football game - this is wrong.

It serves no one well to seek to indoctrinate our students on issues like this. We must bring our children into the 21st century, where the existence of intelligence behind the creation is not only the belief of the vast majority of our citizens, and always has been, but is quickly becoming the viewpoint of many prominent scientists. We should openly discuss the theory of Intelligent Design with our children as well. Public schools have an obligation to present these competing theories without bias or prejudice or favor.