The evolution of creationism

I'm sure many of you are aware in some way or another of the relatively ongoing debate in the U.S. over the teaching of "intelligent design" (the "scientific" sort of creationism - as in God took longer than seven days to create the Earth, and dinosaurs have their existence acknowledged) alongside or in place of evolution. In fact, Kansas banned the teaching of evolution from its schools (in 1999 I think), though it repealed that ban fairly quickly. There have recently been noises from the president in favour of intelligent design, supporting some states' decision to teach it in schools. This has been echoed, so I understand it, albeit in a rather quieter fashion, by our own government.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all for diversity and exposing children to many different views. But it seems to me that creationism of any kind should generally be kept to the religious studies classroom, rather than the science lab (where the folk in Kansas want it. Probably should have mentioned that before). Call me biased if you will. But if you want to define science as being essentially coming up with stuff based on observed fact and then (this is the key point) using empirical evidence to prove it, then evolution, whether or not it is described as a theory or a law, is science, whereas the idea that everything was carefully molded from a lump of clay by a bearded watchmaker is, in fact, rather not.