Ave Maria, Florida. City with no contraceptives, no porn, no gay rights

[madfloridian]

I saw a segment on this on CNN earlier. He mentioned the gay rights and gay pride on that segment. The owner of Domino's Pizza is building a Catholic City in Florida. Robin Blumner covers it in her article entitled "Blumner: Who's really screwing up America? Here are seven candidates"

l No. 7: Tom Monaghan, founder of Domino's Pizza.
In addition to having been a major contributor to anti-abortion groups in the late 1980s, Monaghan is intent on transforming parts of America into Catholics-only territory. His Ave Maria project already includes Ave Maria University, Ave Maria College and Ave Maria Law School, where orthodox Catholicism is incubated in young minds and future leaders. But he also has joined with a local Florida developer to build the town of Ave Maria in Collier County. About the future town, Monaghan said in a speech: ''We're going to control all the commercial real estate, so there's not going to be any pornography sold in this town. We're controlling the cable system. The pharmacies are not going to be able to sell condoms or dispense contraceptives.''

Here is the chosen developer:

http://www.naplesnews.com/npdn/news/article/0,2071,NPDN_14940_3958385,00.html
"Pulte Homes has inked the lucrative deal to be the primary residential developer of the Town of Ave Maria, which will house some 20,000 people and 11,000 homes and condominiums in eastern Collier County, Barron Collier Cos. President and CEO Paul Marinelli announced Wednesday.

Pulte will build and develop approximately 70 to 75 percent of the total residential units that are slated for the master-planned town surrounding Ave Maria University, the first Catholic university to be built in the United States in 40 years, Barron Collier Cos. spokeswoman Dolly Roberts said.

Industry analysts put the value of the multi-year deal Wednesday at $3 billion.

Construction on the first phase of residential housing is planned to begin in mid-2006 with completion planned in mid-2007, ahead of the fall 2007 opening for the university campus. The community is expected to reach build-out at 2017"

[Webster Green]

1. ...and shitty pizza too! (n/t)

[fishnfla]

41. Collier county is nothing but a swamp really

outside of Naples, there ain't nothing.

Nothing new under the sun, if you believe this guys shit, there's dry land for sale there cheap


Edit: oh! eastern collier county! there aint nothing there, period!

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: suckers!

[Tesla]

48. Thanks for the laugh

[DawnneOBTS]

2. Now I know why I will not eat Domino's Pizza ever again...

...like I ever did anyway...NOT!

[LizMoonstar]

15. he bailed on the company back in the mid-90s when his political views came

to light, so it's safe to eat there now should you so choose. they supply free pizza to my college's newspaper staff, so Barak and Roll and I looked into it.

[jackster]

28. okay......

but perhaps I just stick with my local pizza joint that's better anyway!

[Flubadubya]

31. Not so... see post #30

:(

On Edit: Sorry, this is supposed to be in reply to post #15.

[jackster]

34. good, that settles it!

its Spinner's Pizza, Andover, MA for me!

Anyone else out there from the area - check them out - delicious!

[doubleplusgood]

33. they put recall petitions on their pizza boxes

This company must rot from the top down. I used to live in Thousand Oaks, CA in the early 90's. At one point, the local Domino's started putting recall petitions against the only sane member of the T.O. city council on all their pizza boxes...apparently they didn't like the fact that she was against the mindless, endless growth supported by the other, developer-friendly coucil critters. Guess they figured, more houses, more people, more need for pizza. Oh, and the owner of the Domino's in question didn't even live in T.O.

Needless to say, they lost me as a potential customer long ago.

[immoderate]

50. Hey, I lived in T.O. in '95

Great town! (I don't mean the pols.)

--IMM

[doubleplusgood]

73. yeah, great natural setting

Lived there from 86-93. Lots of easy access to hiking & mountain bike trails, especially in the Santa Monica mountains...used to ride my mtn bike to the beach down Sycamore Canyon to the beach on summer evenings after work...I really miss that. I enjoyed the fact that it was relatively close to the Valley, but without some of the more egregious "benefits" of L.A., such as police helicopters overhead on a regular basis, etc. Also, Ventura, Ojai & Santa Barbara were just an hour away. Other than that, though, the area was a pretty much a reactionary political, social & cultural wasteland. It's no wonder they put the Reagan library a stones throw away in Simi.

[derby378]

3. Maybe it can be the sister city of Celebration?

Social engineering, it gives you that fuzzy feeling...

[spinbaby]

76. Celebration is a very nice place

I'm not sure what I was expecting when I went there but I found a delightful small town built with pedestrians in mind. I wouldn't mind living there if it weren't in Florida.

[Sean Reynolds]

4. I hate some Catholics.

It's just too bad some in the Catholic Church believe that they should control your every move.

Thank god I'm a Catholic that can think on his own!

[nashville_brook]

42. i'm the same way, altho hate is a strong word for me-- i feel better

when i'm not around them.

it's like any religion tho -- there's rainbow folk who get under my skin, too. :)

and baptists, ect. fundamentalism is bad thing not matter what it eats.

[turbo_satan]

5. I want to purchase property right at the entrance to Ave Maria...

... and open a business that specializes in leather BDSM trans-sexual communist porno liquor same-sex marriage gay abortion head-shop supplies.

[derby378]

9. You'll need to give it a catchy name, too...

...maybe something provocative like You Know Yo Mama Shops Here.

[TechBear_Seattle]

24. How about a gay bar?

You could call it, "Oh, Mary!" :rofl:

[kilo]

58. This is how we would combat it

Just surround the entrances with "You leave us alone and we'll leave you alone" signs.

I wonder if they would make their own airport to escape the "circle of filth".

I'd have to shop at that store. Maybe make it non-descript and see how many residents of the town patronize it.

[StefanX]

69. Why bother combatting it

Let them stay in Ave Maria, I'll take Manhattan.

This is like a voluntary prison these losers are moving into. I say, let them. Anyone who's so freaked out about sex that they want to live in a town that bans contraceptives and censors their TV - I'm quite happy to see them go live far away on some worthless Florida swampland.

Ave Maria will be a disaster. It'll be a pressure cooker of repressed rebellion and underground deviance punctuated by sporadic flareups of delirious madness and gratuitous violence. It will attract closet freaks hoping in vain that the owner of Domino's can control their dirty, shameful impulses (cf, the Catholic priesthood).

It will slowly devolve into a subterranean cesspool of ennui, angst, crime, sociopathology and morbidity - with the occasional outbursts of crazed rebellious teenagers running amok - followed by the inevitable lawsuits, finger-pointing, arrests and convictions and tearful confused appearances on daytime talk shows asking "What went wrong?". Property values will be in the toilet. Kids will hate their parents for forcing them to grow up there. It will be a lonely, sad, and ultimately very sick place.

[KitchenWitch]

72. Make sure there is a pharmacy in back

So you can dispense birth control as well.

[greenman3610]

No Gays?

So they won't be having any priests there, right?

[derby378]

6. Nomi-friggin-ated!!

Need I say more??

[bribri16]

7. I saw that on CNN. Wow!! Freedom and Democracy at work.

Why does this story sicken me? I will never buy any Dominos pizza in my life.

[madfloridian]

11. Did you feel the total arrogance in that guy? He looked down on us.

It was sickening.

[Catholic Sensation]

8. Someone I know is already planning to protest for Porn Rights

[madfloridian]

10. Forgot the link to Robyn's column:

http://www.sptimes.com/2005/08/14/Columns/Magnificent_7__they_r.shtml

The Magnificent 7, They're Not

According to the new book by conservative author and journalist Bernard Goldberg, 100 people are to blame for the sad state of our country, and most are decidedly liberal.

In 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (And Al Franken is #37), Goldberg insists that people like Eminem, Courtney Love and Maury Povich, who contribute to America's corrosive culture, and those like Barbra Streisand, Barbara Kingsolver and Bill Moyers, who are outspoken liberals, are our nation's greatest villains. His naive rantings take aim largely at the entertainment and infotainment industries, as if changing to a steady diet of Ozzie and Harriet would fix things. You know: bring our troops home, pay off our national debt and make prescription drugs affordable.

On the final page, Goldberg invites readers to come up with their own list.

So, here are the seven people (space won't allow for more) I think are screwing up America. I am leaving off all current elected officials and Supreme Court justices, because they would take up the whole list. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney would be Nos. 1 and 2 (with Bush being 2), and that would be too predictable.

No. 7: Tom Monaghan, founder of Domino's Pizza.

In addition to having been a major contributor to antiabortion groups in the late 1980s, Monaghan is intent on transforming parts of America into Catholics-only territory. His Ave Maria project already includes Ave Maria University, Ave Maria College and Ave Maria Law School, where orthodox Catholicism is incubated in young minds and future leaders. But he also has joined with a local Florida developer to build the town of Ave Maria in Collier County. About the future town, Monaghan said in a speech: "We're going to control all the commercial real estate, so there's not going to be any pornography sold in this town. We're controlling the cable system. The pharmacies are not going to be able to sell condoms or dispense contraceptives." I wonder if the medical advances derived from stem-cell research will be barred from Ave Maria's hospitals."

Edited to spell her name right. She deserves it with her great columns.

[Proud2BAmurkin]

12. Cathlo-fascist pukes

only in the New Amurka

[Moochy]

23. Catholics with righteousness envy

I saw this report too. Very annoying, seems like he should leave the catholic church and start his own christain utopianist offshoot.

The good catholics (IMO) don't prosletyze or set up wacko utopian communities. Live in this world, and change it for the better, set an example.

If you wan't to retreat to some utopian refuge, become a monk. The local catholic bishop should excommunicate this jackass for his hubris. But what do I know I an atheist who was raised catholic.

Just think if he spent the money helping the poor instead of trying to set up his perfect society based on the handmaiden's tale.
Everyone has the right to choose their own charity, but I bristle at this guy doing it in the name of the catholic church.

It stinks of a for-profit thing riding shotgun on the back of the moneyed rubes in search of a utopia.

[JDPriestly]

13. Chastityville. Celebacy City.

This is hilarious. Can't you picture residents rushing to the city lines to buy their sex contraband in the surrounding communities. How far from the edge of town do you think a booming underground industry will set up shop. Think of it, instead of contraceptives, someone is going to get the bright idea of selling chastity belts. Another marketing idea -- the boards that early Americans put in their beds to prevent themselves from getting physically close enough to do something they might regret in the morning. There is something about university-aged people that makes chastity a kind of unrealistic ideal. Do you suppose it's those God-given hormones?

I hope the 11,000 homes are large enough to hold king-sized families. Let's hope they are building enough classrooms, hospitals, playgrounds, etc.

[kilo]

59. 10 years from now

lets check how many teen pregnancies they have from banning contraceptives. Of course they could just buy them elsewhere.

Would they own the streets and be able to stop people in vans from handing out condoms? Do people do that?

[alarimer]

65. We need to open strip clubs and adult bookstores

Right outside the city limits. Call it Sin City or something.

[jackster]

14. yep they just lost my business too

I used to say their pizza tasted like cardboard or styrfoam but over the past couple of years, they've gotten a little better and I strated using them.

NO MORE!

[LizMoonstar]

16. see above, #15 - it's safe now

[Flubadubya]

30. Not even safe...

Check this out from BuyBlue.org:

"Domino's currently has a 0% BuyBlue rating due to political contributions for the 2003-2004 election cycle. Domino's key executives that contributed during the 2003-2004 election cycle contributed exclusively Republican. Domino's also has a political action committee which contributed - $23,500 (0.00% Dem, 100.00% Rep) during the last election cycle."

http://www.buyblue.org/detail.php?corpId=149

[LizMoonstar]

40. well crap.

[LibDemAlways]

17. Does this mean no one will be able to

have an internet connection without a porn filter? What about material purchased on the outside? Will there be a gate and a search for contraband every time a person enters?

What about non-Catholics? Don't federal and state laws protect people against discrimination in housing?

This place sounds like they should rename it "Lawsuit City." What a totally assinine, unworkable idea.

[Is It Fascism Yet]

19. Tre true, all true. N/T

[Orangepeel]

43. well, one would not move there if one wanted that stuff

discrimination against gays or non-catholics is wrong and they shouldn't be able to do it.

But, commercial regulation... Eh, I don't care. Let 'em build their gated puritan utopia. It is different from trying to pass such laws in a town that already exists.

[alarimer]

66. It sounds to me like "the Village"

People running away from the modern world.

[Is It Fascism Yet]

18. What a dull city! Who would want to live there? Sounds like hell.

In fairness, though, Florida does have an all nudist city where you can do your banking and your grocery shopping in your birthday suit, and they also have a whole city of persons who are former side show circus performers. We could think of the Keys as the Florida Liberal Bastian and Florida certainly also boasts Conservative Bastians. So, I guess they are trying to have something for everyone.

[Vinca]

20. How about "no welfare" when that gem about "no contraceptives"

fails miserably. Actually, I think this is a great idea. Lump the nutballs in one place and leave the rest of us in normal land alone.

[Bluebear]

21. PHOTO: ARTIST'S RENDERING

[pop goes the weasel]

22. Oh, I wish I had money!

I'd build a different town, just outside of their jurisdiction. I'd get great money from everyone who wanted to put in a liquor store, bar, adult entertainment business or regular pharmacy. With all the sales tax money we'd be raking in from the citizens of Ave Maria, we could have great schools and parks and libraries. I'd name it after the business opportunities it represents. "Commerce"? No, too dry. Ah, how about "Intercourse"?

[alfredo]

29. Call it Sodomyville.

[Ilsa]

56. You could offer disguises for sale to the folks coming in from

Ave Maria if they feel some sense of shame for the drinking, nonreproductive fornicating, etc.

[name not needed]

60. call it Buttsex City

:shrug:

[KingFlorez]

25. That's kind of crazy

Would want to move to a town like that?

[msongs]

26. umm, where there's christians, there's porn.....................

the overwhelming majority of americans are some kinda christian, so by definition the majority of people doing porn are most likely to be christians. the more extreme the wingnut religious view, the more likely the repressed persons practicing it are also engaging in licentious behavior, according to some psychology theories.

if it wasn't for christians doing porn, the porn industry could likely collapse.

did christian boy scout leader btk do porn, btw?

Msongs
www.msongs.com/political-shirts.htm

[mongo]

75. Porn knows no party lines

Responsible adults of all political affiliations and varieties enjoy adult entertainment.

The progressives are just usually more upfront and relaxed about it.

I can usually tell how repressed a person is by their body language in the store and at the register.

[DanCa]

27. Time to protest the bishops council. Its time to go one the offense (nt)

[blue4barb]

32. A few days ago I saw Monaghan interviewed for a local (Detroit) station.

He said that he believes that his calling in life is to "save souls". Very, very arrogant indeed. Reminds me of the missionaries that traveled to third world countries to force their religion on the natives. Except I'm sure Monaghan would never be caught in a third world country living in poor, unsanitary housing while trying to convert them to Catholicism.

[CatholicEdHead]

35. Here is the link to the gated community:

http://www.avemaria.com/

I would not be allowed there as I am not "orthodox" enough. It is a real narrow subset of Catholics he is looking for, mostly the ones who toe the Vatican's line 100% and do not question.

Shutting themselves off from the outside world is not living up to the main parts of the Gospels, but it is what religions often have done over the centuries.

[Idioteque]

36. The only thing worth buying at my local dominos is weed...

...I usually get my pizza from papa johns or pizza hut.

[meganmonkey]

37. It's because we wouldn't let him get away with it in Ann Arbor

Good luck, Floridians. I hope he'll leave us alone now.

And of course it's Pulte homes building their stuff.

:puke:

[CatholicEdHead]

38. Wow, this is harsh

http://www.cruxnews.com/rose/rose-28may04.html

If he can't have his way in Michigan, he is pretty much destroying what is left in Michigan for his Flordian pipe dream.

"Hittinger, who was lured to St. Mary’s from his tenured post at the prestigious U.S. Air Force Academy, went even further. "Mr. Monaghan," he wrote, "seems oblivious to Church doctrine on social justice in his treatment of faculty and staff as ‘at will’ employees. He also spurns centuries-old academic customs and protocols, especially those pertaining to faculty status and governance."

The term "merge" here is something of a euphemism since Ave Maria, like St. Mary’s, would likely be absorbed into Madonna into what amounts to a corporate takeover. No consultations have been held with the Ave Maria faculty, staff or students. While Madonna University has long been well-respected for technical programs run by the Felician Sisters, what is it going to do with another high-powered liberal arts college shoved under its roof?

By way of background, he explained that in 2002 Ave Maria’s Board of Trustees "voted unanimously" to move the college to Florida. When the Board discovered that it’s not possible to simply "transfer" a college to another region of the country, he added, "a separate, Florida entity had to be created to continue the educational mission of Ave Maria College in a new state."

It is important to reiterate here what the general public does not yet seem to understand. Ave Maria College in Michigan and Ave Maria University in Florida are two distinct entities. One risks being dismantled—its students, faculty and staff sacrificed—so that the other may have life."

[meganmonkey]

39. Yeah, he doesn't do so well for demonstrating Catholic goodwill

except to other Catholics, and even then he isn't consistent.

I work in the nonprofit world in Ann Arbor, let's just say the area fundraisers don't try much to get any significant money from his organizations. And they have a LOT of money. I guess his idea of charity is making sure same-sex couples don't get to keep their benefits at U of M.

There are other Catholic organizations in town that I work with a lot and they do wonderful things for the community, I hope don't sound like I'm Catholic bashing...Just Monaghan bashing ;)

[Talismom]

44. Unfortunately there are people like this in every group. We all know about

the right wing protestants and I'm a Jew living in the midst of many ultra-right wing Jews who are easily as intolerant. What are you gonna do? I'm afraid it seems to be a part of human nature that we have to aknowledge.

[CatholicEdHead]

47. I would expect he is not consistent

I have tuned in to Ave Maria Radio and Relevant Radio (which carries some of the former's shows) and the broadcasts are VERY narrow minded. It is just Republican Catholism with a fixation on the same narrow issues Monaghan is intrested in.

Ave Maria Radio's premier show, Al Kestra is the Catholic Religious Rush of the radio. His topics are pretty much "born-again" fundie topics tweaked to a Catholic-like point of view mixed in with Republican Darwanist economic policies.

http://www.avemariaradio.net/Guestlist/al-kresta-guestlist.php

Take the most recent list, two of the top three are NOT Catholic issues. Talking about the Apolocypse and Intelligent Design? WTF?

"Michael Barber "The Mass and the Apocalypse" - A chapter from Catholic for a Reason II Aug-19-2005

Dr. Thomas Woodward Doubts About Darwin: A History of Intelligent Design Aug-19-2005"

Not to mention all the Cindy bashing, and the official Vatican stance on the Iraq war was it was illegal and both JPII and Ben XVI have said that.

[Triana]

45. The Taliban (control freaks) Time to boycott Dominos Pizzza

UNfrigginbelievable. This control freak needs to secede and start his own TALIBAN-run country and stay the hell out of this one.

Ugh!

[flvegan]

46. Interesting. The deed restrictions will be declared

unConstitutional before the ink is dry, I'm betting.

[kbm8795]

49. Well good. . .

now we know where to relocate all the child sexual abuse offenders.

[sakabatou]

51. It's too bad the name Ave Maria is being used by a fundie like that

The song is really beautiful.

[fujiyama]

52. Ah good to know this freaky fundie town isn't in MI

What a fucking nutcase!

[sunnystarr]

53. Please read the full article

It's 4 pages long and ends this way:

In other words, the county's major contribution to the project may be just allowing it to proceed — and it's not clear what principles governing church-state separation this violates, if any.

What's more, recent legal precedent may be on Monaghan's side. In 2003, the United States Supreme Court refused to hear a challenge to a federal appeals-court ruling that allowed Orthodox Jews in Tenafly, New Jersey, to create an eruv — a demarcated area within which specific religious guidelines would be followed on holy days and the Sabbath — inside that community. It was an emphatic validation of the constitutional right to freedom of association. The parallel with Ave Maria isn't perfect, since the Tenafly case involved occasional behavior within a pre-existing community. But it bodes well for those who envision a more restrictive Ave Maria. So, it's worth noting, do Monaghan's ties with Antonin Scalia, the conservative Catholic Supreme Court justice who was recently a "justice-in-residence" at Ave Maria Law School, and Clarence Thomas, Scalia's Supreme Court colleague, who spoke at the law school in 1999 and 2004.

Even so, a number of troubling scenarios come to mind. What happens, for example, if an outspoken atheist tries to purchase a home in Ave Maria? If supporters of a political candidate who backs abortion rights attempt to canvass there, will they be turned away? If an individual or group of persons living inside Ave Maria deviate from Monaghan's conception of Catholic orthodoxy — say, by possessing pornography or contraception — what will the consequences be?

Strange as it may sound, the best outcome for Monaghan and his supporters might be to see Ave Maria challenged in the courts. It is a commonplace, among conservative Christians of all stripes, that the judiciary and the broader culture are hostile to "people of faith." The acuteness of this conviction should not be underestimated. In 2000, for example, Father John McCloskey, another eminent Catholic conservative, wrote a widely noted letter framed as a communication, in 2030, from an elderly priest to a newly ordained youth. In McCloskey's imagination, a vague but ominous conflict had replaced the United States with a "Regional States of North America"; the Catholic Church in the US had emerged stronger, but hardly unscathed. "As it turns out," the imaginary mentor tells his protégé, "those few years in prison and the torture were wonderful for my spiritual life."

If meddling secularists and activist judges intrude on Monaghan's project, the collective ire of orthodox Catholics — who are already incensed by America's embrace of the so-called culture of death — will only intensify. And those who share Monaghan's worldview will have a new martyr. If the town of Ave Maria proceeds apace, meanwhile, the militantly separatist Catholic subculture that's already growing in American society will be that much stronger. Either way, Tom Monaghan wins.

http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/top/features/documents/04761831.asp

This is scary shit!

[mitchum]

54. "Eat this is my body...yeah, I know it DOES taste like greasy cardboard...

covered with glue...but it is late...raining out...and they deliver"

Moaghan: once a huckster, always a huckster...

[Bluebear]

61. Funny stuff!! n/t

[kilo]

55. Isn't this what we want?

So we know which towns to avoid?

And with freedom you could make your own town that supported your values. Like "No people who are opposed to the legalization of marijuana can live in this town".

[Ilsa]

57. What are they going to do? Check all the bedrooms for

condoms and pills and dvds? Are they going to screen anyone coming into town to make sure they don't have "paraphernalia?" They're just losing business to surrounding areas.

Let them build it. Then let them see after a couple of years how patently absurd this shit is. People won't be boxed in this way, even voluntarily.

[lectrobyte]

62. Pulte? One good tropical storm, and the entire town will be a

memory if Pulte is putting up the houses. Cardboard houses to go with cardboard pizza. Sweet!

[alarimer]

63. Can this possibly be legal???

How can you exclude people from any community??

[StefanX]

64. Well, it's a free country

So if they want to build a sad little town on a swamp, I say let them. Losers have a right to live somewhere too.

The rest of us can enjoy New York, Paris, San Francisco, LA, Miami Beach, etc.

[SheWhoMustBeObeyed]

67. In a nation of internets, I'm amazed porn shops still make money

So you can move to Ave Maria (jeez that name makes me wince) and be a big pious phoney baloney while you've got your special secret laptop that the rest of the family doesn't use and it's loaded to the gills with porn. And not bland porn, either. Nope, not even kinky porn. Just the sick, sick, sick, illegal-in-all-50-states porn. You can't even buy it at a shop, but the internets are loaded with it.

Gah.

If you want a taste of what Catholic Town will be like, watch EWTN for awhile. As an ex-Catholic, I can't take more than ten minutes at a time.

Gah!

[TheModernTerrorist]

68. COOL!

whoever said communism is dead? ;-)

[JDPriestly]

70. I don't think Jesus would want to live there.

Jesus preached to sinners and healed the sick regardless of who they were. I just don't think he would waste his time living in a community like Ave Maria.

[Warren DeMontague]

71. How many gun stores, that's what I want to know.

Something tells me all those frustrated people are going to need to blow off steam, somehow.

[noonwitch]

74. Can he legally do this?

I'm not so sure he can do this with a whole town. A campus, perhaps, because it would be private school subject to it's own rules under the law. But an american city, that is subject to the laws of the state? Oh, I forgot, it's Florida.

I guess CVS, Walgreen's, Rite Aid, and all chain drug stores won't have stores there, as selling condoms and contraceptives are a big part of their business.

Is this yet another compound being built for the elect to survive the tribulation? That's never a good sign for a religious organization.

[MADem]

77. He will probably retain ownership of the property

...and give the buyer a 99 year lease with restrictive covenants, or some such shit, so in essence, it is his private property, and the bums who live there have to agree to abide by his rules. Where there is law, people with an agenda will find a way around it!