New Polk monument: Commandments-plus

Unlike the one banned in Alabama, it displays multiple historic documents.

BARTOW - A 6,000-pound monument engraved with the Ten Commandments was unveiled Thursday in Polk County's government building, weeks after Alabama's chief justice lost a fight over a Ten Commandments monument.

But a representative of the American Civil Liberties Union, which challenged the Alabama display, said Polk's granite monument is quite different from the one Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore was ordered to remove from a state building.

Polk County's American Heritage Foundation Rock is topped by a replica of the Liberty Bell. Its base is carved with quotations from several historic documents and people.

"It is obvious that this is very different from the monument Judge Moore fought for," said Darlene Williams, chairwoman of the ACLU of Greater Tampa. She said it still needs to be evaluated by ACLU lawyers.

The $150,000 monument was paid for with private funds and approved by Polk County commissioners.

The 2-foot-high Ten Commandments engraving takes up just part of a side 5 feet high and 3 feet wide. It is surrounded by engravings from the Magna Carta, the Mayflower Compact and a quote from John Adams.

Engravings on the other three sides include the preamble of the Florida Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, the code of the Roman emperor Justinian, the epilogue to the Hammurabi Code, the Federalist Papers and quotes from Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, John Jay, President John Quincy Adams and other American patriots.

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