kikipeepers asked
I think it's ridiculous they can't ... there are thousands of Southerners buried there, many people in the south still hold a lot of respect for the Confederate Flag. ************* Supreme Court Allows Cemetery Confederate Flag Ban Tue Oct 15, 1:11 PM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - 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.
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