Two former Gateway Church elders have tried and failed to get themselves removed from the $1 million defamation suit filed by Cindy Clemishire against the church, several of its elders and staff members, and former Pastor Robert Morris.
Editor’s note: This article refers to reports of child sex abuse, which some readers might find triggering and/or disturbing.
Clemishire first came forward in June 2024 to allege that Morris had sexually abused her beginning when she was 12 years old. She alleged that the abuse took place in the 1980s when Morris was in his early 20s.
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Morris, who founded Gateway Church in 2000, resigned as its senior pastor in the wake of Clemishire’s accusation. He subsequently pleaded guilty of five felony counts of child sex abuse in Oklahoma, where the abuse occurred. In exchange for his guilty plea, all but six months of his 10-year prison sentence was suspended.
Morris is currently behind bars.
For years before Clemishire came forward, Morris had spoken openly about his abuse of Clemishire. However, he framed his actions as consensual but “inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady.” In Clemeshire’s lawsuit, she alleges that certain church elders and staff were fully aware that she was a child at the time of the events Morris often described.
Steve Dulin and Kevin Grove, both former Gateway Church elders, sought to be removed from the lawsuit.
Dulin, a founding elder of Gateway who had served in various executive-level staff positions at the church, departed from Gateway in July 2024. While neither Gateway nor Dulin specified the exact reason for Dulin’s departure, the church said it had decided to “go in a different direction.”
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Dulin and Grove were two among four elders that took a leave of absence when Gateway hired a third-party investigator to conduct an independent inquiry into whether elders and staff knew enough about Morris’ abuse of Clemishire to be morally culpable.
