More abuse claims surface at Gateway Church protest. They don't involve Robert Morris

On June 15, Amy Smith had the police called on her as she stood outside Gateway Church in Southlake, protesting the sex abuse scandal involving the church’s founder and then-senior Pastor Robert Morris.

A week later — with Morris no longer the pastor after confessing to molesting a girl in Oklahoma starting when she was 12 years old in the 1980s — Smith was outside the megachurch again, protesting with others in support of Cindy Clemishire, who recently announced she was the young girl sexually abused by Morris.

Among those with Smith were a mother and daughter who are former members of Gateway’s Frisco campus, where they said a church leader was accused of sexual abuse in February 2023.

Smith became an advocate for survivors of sexual abuse after growing up in Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, where she learned about a music minister who had been accused of sexually abusing a boy.

Now, Smith, as well as other protesters, say it’s not enough that Morris resigned from his position at Gateway.

“He should not be allowed to have a platform with that power,” said Smith of Morris, a spiritual adviser for former President Donald Trump. “There are levels to abuse in the church that’s not just physical or sexual, but it’s spiritual and emotional.”

Clemishire, now in her 50s, recently announced in a blog post that Morris abused her in Oklahoma and Texas between 1982 and 1987.

In 2014, Morris publicly announced in a sermon that he had previously been “sexually immoral,” but did not speak on the sexual abuse of Clemishire until the megachurch released a statement to the church staff on June 14, which was leaked on social media.

Morris said in the statement he was involved in “inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady” in a home where he was staying. He continued by saying the contact he had with Clemishire was wrong but did not involve intercourse.

“Pastor Robert did a phenomenal job of being open and transparent about his transgressions and his past, his moral failures,” said Gateway’s Kenneth W. Fambro II, speaking on behalf of the elders board, which governs the church.

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