BALTIMORE — The Confederate battle flag can fly at a Civil War cemetery in St. Mary's County, a federal judge has ruled.

In the opinion issued yesterday, U.S. District Judge William M. Nickerson held that, as applied in this case, federal Veterans Administration regulations that prohibit displaying the flag over the cemetery violated free-speech rights.

The Justice Department had argued that allowing the flag to fly at the cemetery on a daily basis could be viewed as an endorsement of racial intolerance by the U.S. government, which operates the cemetery.

Nickerson wrote that the government's "continual reference to the Confederate flag as a symbol of racial intolerance and divisiveness clearly demonstrates that Defendants are choosing, and advancing, the viewpoint of those offended by the flag over the viewpoint of those proud of the flag."

"That's just wonderful news, wonderful news for my Confederate ancestors, and I guess everybody's Confederate ancestors," said Patrick J. Griffin III, a Montgomery County man who brought the suit.

However, Nickerson also wrote that "a sign shall be erected at the base of the flag pole clearly indicating that the display of the Confederate flag is provided by and supported by a private party or parties," rather than the U.S. government.

More than 3,000 Southern prisoners are buried at the graveyard at Point Lookout, where the Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay meet.

Home to a prisoner of war camp set up by the Union shortly after the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863, more than 50,000 Confederate prisoners went through the camp — more than any other camp operated by either side — and an estimated 4,000 of them died under harsh conditions.

Michael Wright, a First Amendment lawyer who argued the case for Griffin, said the ruling had implications for all Confederate cemeteries run by the federal government, and possibly for other federal cemeteries where Confederates are buried, including Arlington National Cemetery.

A cemetery attendant began flying the Confederate battle flag at the Point Lookout cemetery in 1994, but it was ordered taken down in 1998 after it came to the attention of the Veterans Affairs Department, which operates the cemetery. A 1995 policy allowed the flag at its cemeteries only on Memorial Day or Confederate Memorial Day.

A Virginia-based group called the Point Lookout POW Descendants Organization said it gathered more than 14,000 signatures from people demanding that the flag be restored. Griffin, a descendant of an officer held at Point Lookout, sued last October, arguing that a Confederate cemetery is an appropriate place to fly a Confederate flag.

Under Nickerson's ruling, Griffin is permitted to display a full-sized, historically accurate Confederate battle flag from its own pole at Point Lookout, daily from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. The pole must be at least three feet lower than the U.S. flagpole, and Griffin and his supporters must bear the cost of erecting the pole.