Cindy Clemishire, who went public last month about the alleged abuse she experienced from former Gateway Church Pastor Robert Morris, told CBS News Texas this week that Oprah Winfrey helped her to realize that what Clemishire had experienced was, in fact, abuse.
“Because it’s a seduction, I think it should be called child seduction and assault,” Winfrey said in a TV segment Clemishire saw in 2005. Winfrey is a survivor of child sexual assault and has been an outspoken activist on the subject. Clemishire told CBS Texas that she saw Winfrey on TV in 2005 explaining how predators groom their victims.
Up to that point, even though Clemishire had discussed her alleged abuse with trusted friends and counselors, she did not see Morris’s alleged actions (which occurred in the 1980s) as abusive because he was not “mean.” For example, Clemishire said she “couldn’t understand” why one person she confided in “called it abuse. He wasn’t aggressive…He was very playful.”
But when Winfrey explained that grooming is a type of “seduction,” a light bulb went off for Clemishire. “I sat there in shock,” she said. “I emailed him after I saw the Oprah show. I was very angry—and rightfully so!”
Cindy Clemishire’s Experience Helped Her Protect Her Son
On June 14, Cindy Clemishire published allegations on The Wartburg Watch that Gateway Church’s Pastor Robert Morris had sexually abused her from 1982 to 1987, starting when she was 12 years old and he was in his 20s. Gateway Church is a megachurch in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and Morris, who has since resigned, is the church’s founding pastor. He was a traveling minister when the alleged abuse occurred, and he and his family were close with Clemishire’s family.
Clemishire says the abuse did not stop until she told her parents about it. This she did only because a friend asked her some direct questions and encouraged her to tell her parents about what Morris had allegedly done. Clemishire said that her father called Shady Grove Church in Grand Prairie, Texas, where Morris was serving as a pastor at the time, and then Morris stepped away from ministry for two years.
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Clemishire’s father reportedly did not tell authorities about the alleged abuse, and Morris returned to ministry after the two years were over. He founded Gateway in 2000, and the church has since grown to an attendance of over 25,800.
Gateway elders initially responded to Clemishire’s allegations by saying that Morris had already previously acknowledged “inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady” that occurred in his 20s and that he had done everything necessary to repent of that sin and be restored. According to Morris, “In March of 1987, this situation was brought to light, and it was confessed and repented of. I submitted myself to the Elders of Shady Grove Church and the young lady’s father.”
Morris said the father gave his blessing for Morris to return to ministry, something that Clemishire vehemently denies. CBS Texas reports that in her 2005 email to Morris, Clemishire told him, “I have suffered almost my entire life from the emotional damage you inflicted on me…You have had almost no consequences.”
