FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) - Republican Gov. Ernie Fletcher ordered the
Ten Commandments displayed in the state Capitol on Monday, hitting
on one of his re-election campaign themes the day before Kentucky's
general election.

The Ten Commandments, along with other historical documents
mounted on gold-colored easels, went on display in the Rotunda
following a ruling from a federal judge earlier Monday. U.S.
District Judge Joseph M. Hood ruled that a previous injunction that
prohibited a different monument displaying the Biblical directives
did not apply.

Kentucky's race for governor culminates Tuesday, when voters
decide whether Fletcher or Democrat Steve Beshear will guide
Kentucky over the next four years. Recent media polls have shown
Fletcher trailing Beshear by 15 to 23 percentage points.

Throughout the campaign, Fletcher and other Republicans have
criticized Beshear for an opinion he wrote as Kentucky attorney
general in 1981 - following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling - that
advised public schools to remove the Ten Commandments from
classroom walls.

Monday's executive order from Fletcher, an ordained Baptist
minister, directed the Ten Commandments be displayed as part of a
"Foundations of American Law and Government Display" that
includes the Magna Carta, Mayflower Compact and the Declaration of
Independence.

Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the
University of Virginia, said Fletcher was playing to his political
base of social conservatives.