Supreme Court allows cemetery Confederate flag ban

Journal Gazette ^ | 10/15/02

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court rejected on Tuesday appeals by the descendant of a Civil War soldier who wanted the Confederate flag flown every day at a national cemetery in St. Mary's County, Maryland, where 3,300 Southern prisoners have been buried.

Without comment, the justices refused to hear two appeals by Patrick J. Griffin III, who challenged the decision by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to ban the daily display of the Confederate flag at national cemeteries.

The case involved the Point Lookout Confederate Cemetery, set up by the Union as a prisoner-of-war camp during the Civil War. About 3,300 Confederate soldiers died in captivity, buried in a mass grave.

At the cemetery, the American flag is flown 24 hours a day, illuminated from sunset to sunrise.

The government regulations, adopted in 1995, generally allow the display of the Confederate flag at national cemeteries only on two days a year - Memorial Day and Confederate Memorial Day.

Griffin, the descendant of a Confederate soldier imprisoned at Point Lookout and a member of an organization called Sons of Confederate Veterans, challenged the constitutionality of the government's regulations.

He wanted to erect a flagpole and display the Confederate flag on a daily basis.

A federal judge ruled the ban violated constitutional free-speech protections under the First Amendment, but a U.S. appeals court disagreed.

The appeals court ruled that the purpose of Point Lookout was to honor the soldiers buried there as Americans. It upheld the restrictions on displaying the Confederate flag as reasonable.

The Supreme Court sided with the federal government and let stand the appeals court ruling.

[scooter2]

This politicall correct BS is going way too far.

[Sloth]

I don't know... I don't want some moron being free to fly the Iraqi flag there.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

Why should the flag of the losing side in the war be flown by Federal mandate?

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

Because the southerners were still Americans.

[lainie]

The Congress decides who, what, and wherefore of everything that happens on a federal property. This guy was wasting his time and money from day one. He'd have been better off starting a movement to put the cemetary back under Maryland state jurisdiction, where he might actually have a chance at affecting change.

If his flag was allowed, then the next guy would want to put up a gadsden. Then the next guy, a religious fish, and the next a welcome pineapple. Then the next guy a gay rainbow flag.. and on and on.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

And they lost the war. Sorry, their flag really doesn't get displayed on national properties as a matter of any "right", as far as I am concerned. That flag represents treason and sedition as to the rightful government of the United States, and regardless of the personal qualities of many of its military leaders, and it still cannot be allowed any official recognition.

[cajun-jack]

because they were every bit as patriotic americans as the union solidiers.....it's not hate...it's heritage.....the war between the states was NOT about slavery.....it was about a bunch of dumbassed yankees trying to run everything just like the idiots in the northeast are trying to do today...

[FreeTally]

it was about a bunch of dumbassed yankees trying to run everything just like the idiots in the northeast are trying to do today...

Some things never change, an I am afraid casualties will be much higher come the next go around........

[lainie]

Oh it does not represent treason and sedition. Get real.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

Since when did I use the word hate? I used the words sedition and treason, which are in fact the applicable ones.

Y'all had the privilege of continuing to run the south until the Civil Rights Act got signed, and made a mess of it. As far as I can see, that "heritage" of ugly, poorly zoned small businesses, misspelled handlettered signs and widespread poverty disappears more and more each day, as we pass further into this truly remarkable American century and a proud and ethnically diverse New South rises from the ashes of segregation.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

Why doesn't it represent treason and sedition? 'Splain yerself.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

You never addressed my question.

[Constitution Day]

This is a memorial to the almost 4,000 prisoners who died at Point Lookout.
It is located at the old prison cemetery.

[Sangamon Kid]

That flag represents treason and sedition as to the rightful government of the United States,...

How strange that you should take on the spirit of Chancellor Palpatine, the freedom-hating, tyrannical, poster boy of the Dark Side.

[WhiskeyPapa]

The CSA battle emblem is toast.

Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

I say the United States should allow royal titles and make subjects out of the people.

That is specifically prohibited in the U.S. Constitution.

Walt

[Vladiator]

...the next go around.

Yeah, when Coke, WalMart, Fedex and all the other corporations in the south declare themselves to be in league with the Klan and destroy their USA markets, a new Civil War will start, and you can lead the revolt back to slavery.

[BikerNYC]

...the war between the states was NOT about slavery.....

Not at all? Not even a little bit? A tiny little bit?