Po;itical Correctness Running Amok at Point Lookout

[Tamaroa]

I don't know about you all but this infuriates me. What flag are Confederate POW's supposed to be buried under!

June 06, 2003
Point Lookout Memorial Speech Lines Disapproved by Judge

June 6, 2003--A federal judge has upheld a ruling by the Department of Veterans Affairs that requires several lines to be removed from a speech to be given at a memorial service June 14 at Point Lookout, a holding camp for Confederate prisoners of war in southern Maryland. The service is to be held in the portion of the camp now designated as a national cemetery.

Patrick J. Griffin III, a Maryland resident and past commander of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, had planned to include four passages in his address in which he opposed the government's decision to allow the Confederate flag to fly at the site only during the annual ceremony. Griffin was required to submit a draft of his planned speech to Veterans Affair officials in advance.

Among the lines the agency found objectionable were: "The government is surely right in allowing our flag to fly here today," and, "Especially in this place, the flag should fly every day, just as it is doing this morning."

Veterans Affairs rules require that public remarks in national military cemeteries must be nonpartisan and "viewpoint neutral," the Washington Post's Eugene Meyers reported. The SCV requested a preliminary injunction barring the VA from forcing Griffin to revise his remarks or from fining him for speech it considered improper.

James J. Schwartz, a Justice Department attorney representing the VA, said in court that regulations banning contentious speech were adopted to ensure that such cemeteries remain tranquil places, free of controversy, where the dead may be honored and remembered with dignity. The VA, he said, "is entitled to determine what is the subject matter and to go forward with its mandate to protect these national shrines."

The SCV's suit did not dispute the department's right to exercise prior restraint over speech on public land, their lawyer said. Michael F. Wright, an attorney on the various challenges, argued yesterday that Griffin and the other plaintiffs were contesting only the removals from the specific speech that Griffin planned to give.

"We're not saying VA has to let Save the Whales in there, for example," Wright said.

District Judge William Nickerson denied the motion for injunction. He said that the regulation's constitutionality had already been settled and that it was up to the plaintiffs to show that the rule "as applied" in this case would cause actual and imminent harm.

"The real harm is very hard to comprehend," the judge said.

Griffin said he would abide by the ruling and delete sections of his speech the VA had found objectionable.

"Today obviously wasn't our day," said "I abide by and respect the law," he said, "even though I may not agree with it."

Point Lookout was established by Union forces after the Battle of Gettysburg. Over the course of its operations the facility housed 52,264 Confederate prisoners, some 14,000 of whom died there and are buried in a mass grave on the grounds.

The camp, much of which is now a Maryland state park, is located at the very tip of the state south of Washington DC where the Potomac River enters Chesapeake Bay.

Until about ten years ago the Confederate battle flag routinely flew over the memorial. After controversies arose in various places over the use of the flag at taxpayer-supported venues, the VA restricted its display, a policy that was challenged and upheld in the courts. Under an agreement reached after another lawsuit, the Confederate flag is flown at the cemetery only on the day of the memorial meeting.

Another lawsuit has been brought by the Confederate groups challenging policies at Point Lookout, but the judge declined to issue a ruling on that matter at the hearing on the injunction over the speech.

In May, the Point Lookout POW group bought two acres near the federal monument where it intends to erect a statue of a Confederate soldier and fly the battle flag along with flags of all the states of the Confederacy.

Bill