Cindy Clemishire, whose story of childhood sexual abuse led to the indictment of Gateway Church founder Robert Morris by a multicounty grand jury in Oklahoma on March 12, said he shattered her sheltered 1982 childhood innocence, and it has taken her a lifetime to heal.
The now 55-year-old grandmother of three testified on Wednesday along with other survivor advocates before the Texas House Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence committee in support of House Bill 748. Also known as “Trey’s Law,” the legislation would prohibit the use of nondisclosure agreements in civil settlement agreements involving victims of child sex abuse and trafficking.
Clemishire alleged last June that Morris, who founded the Southlake, Texas-based Gateway Church in 2000, sexually abused her over multiple years in the 1980s, beginning when she was 12 and ending when she was 17 after she told an adult about the abuse. Morris was a traveling evangelist and married with one child at the time.
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She told state legislators she was haunted by shame she carried around like luggage for many years and did not even accept that she was abused until the age of 35.
“I was 35 the first time I truly accepted and believed that he abused me, that it was criminal, and I understood what grooming was. And that changed the course of my journey to more healing, and there’s anger, of course, involved in that,” Clemishire said.
Living in the small town of Hominy, Oklahoma, in 1982, where the abuse took place, Clemishire said that she wasn’t yet exposed to much at 12 years old.
“I mean, [19]82 was a very different time when we didn’t carry computers around in our hands and we had six channels maybe on our televisions,” she said. “Innocence was very different than it is now most of the time.”
At age 17, she claimed Morris’ wife, Debbie, told her that she forgave her for the abuse and was grateful because she felt at the time that the abuse was her fault.
“At 17, when I told, I did feel as though I was the one at fault, even to the extent that Robert Morris’ wife, Debbie, called to tell me she forgave me,” Clemishire said.
“At 17 and them [Morris family] being family friends, I was thankful because I felt like I had done something wrong and I had been treated as though I had done something wrong by Robert,” she explained.
Trey’s Law, HB 748, was approved unanimously by the Texas House Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence committee to move to the full House of Representatives for approval. If the House passes it, the bill will need approval by the Texas Senate and the governor to become law.
Trey’s Law is named in honor of Trey Carlock, who died by suicide just before his 29th birthday in 2019 after signing an NDA to settle a child sex abuse claim against Kanakuk Kamps in Branson, Missouri.
His abuser, serial abuser Pete Newman, was found guilty of molesting at least 57 victims while he was a counselor at Kanakuk Kamps. Newman was given two life sentences plus 30 years for abusing six boys at the Christian camp and was denied parole last October.
Trey’s older sister, Elizabeth Phillips, testified to the committee that the restrictive NDA he signed to settle his case had destroyed him.
“My brother referred to his settlement as blood money as if he had betrayed his own soul to keep Kanakuk secrets, and it killed him,” Phillips said. “So I am here before this committee to ask you to please remember Trey. I’m asking the Texas Legislature to pass Trey’s law this session as an urgent matter of public safety.”
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