An 8-year-old South Carolina girl's dream of having the Columbian Mammoth become the official state fossil has been put on hold while lawmakers debate an amendment that gives God credit for creation of the prehistoric animal.

Republican Senator Kevin Bryant added two verses from the book of Genesis leading to the amendment being ruled out of order.  A debate on a new amendment will happen this week to include details that the mammoth was "created on the sixth day along with the beasts of the field".

"I just had a notion that we ought to consider acknowledging the creator as we acknowledge one of his creations," Bryant said.

The original measure followed a letter to elected officials by Olivia McConnell, an-8-year-old from New Zion, South Carolina.

In it, she pointed out that there is no state fossil, said Democratic Representative Robert Ridgeway, who received the letter and sponsored the measure.

McConnell suggested the elephant-like mammoth because an early find of its remains took place in 1725 on a South Carolina plantation where slaves dug up a tooth, Ridgeway said.

Bryant said he does not intend to hold up the mammoth's official designation but would like a vote on his amendment and sees no legal problems with it.

Reaction from some South Carolina residents has been "nasty," he said.

"Please stop making our state look like backwards hillbillies who believe in fairy tales," Alex Davis commented on Bryant's website. "Keep your religious views out of the government."