On June 15, Amy Smith had police call her as she stood outside Gateway Church in Southlake, protesting the sex abuse scandal involving church founder and then-senior pastor Robert Morris.
A week later — when Morris was no longer the pastor after admitting to abusing a girl in Oklahoma when she was 12 in the 1980s — Smith stood outside the megachurch again, protesting with others in support of Cindy Clemishire , who recently announced she was. the young girl who was sexually abused by Morris.
Among those with Smith were a mother and daughter who are former members of Gateway’s Frisco campus, where they say a church leader was accused of sexual abuse in February 2023.
Smith became an advocate for sexual abuse survivors after growing up at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, where she heard about a music minister accused of sexually abusing a boy.
Now Smith, like other protesters, say it’s not enough that Morris resigned from his position at Gateway.
“He shouldn’t have a platform with that power,” said Smith Van Morris, a spiritual adviser to former President Donald Trump. “There are levels of abuse in the church that are not just physical or sexual, but also spiritual and emotional.”
Clemishire, now in her 50s, recently revealed in a blog post that Morris abused her in Oklahoma and Texas between 1982 and 1987.
In 2014, Morris publicly disclosed in a sermon that he had previously been “sexually immoral,” but he did not speak about Clemishire’s sexual abuse until the megachurch released a statement to church staff on June 14, which was leaked on social media.
Morris said in the statement that he engaged in “inappropriate sexual conduct with a young lady” at a home where he was staying. He went on to say that the contact he had with Clemishire was wrong, but that there was no sexual intercourse.
“Pastor Robert has done a phenomenal job of being open and transparent about his transgressions and his past, his moral failures,” said Kenneth W. Fambro II of Gateway, speaking on behalf of the council of elders, which governs the church.
“What we didn’t know was that she was 12 years old,” Kimbro said, according to NBC News.
According to a news release, the church’s board of elders extended their condolences to Clemishire and her family.
Smith says the church is aware of the abuse.
‘This isn’t the first time she’s done that [Clemishire] I was trying to get people to listen,” Smith said.
Smith told the Star-Telegram that Clemishire confronted Morris years ago and the church tried to get her to sign a non-disclosure agreement.
“He [Morris] did not repent and did this on his own,” Smith said. “He was caught, he was exposed and that’s why he had to resign.”
Smith demands accountability from the church board and demands that Morris confess to the police.
More accusations involving Gateway
According to some former Gateway members, concerns about sexual abuse have been raised in the church before – as recently as last year.
Anita Ishee and her daughter Nicole Ishee said they regularly visited the Gateway campus in Frisco, where they even served as members of a children’s ministry that taught parents how to protect their children from dangers, including sexual abuse.
They met a man from church who was part of the leadership of the Frisco campus. In February 2023, Anita and Nicole learned the man was accused of abusing children and reported it to Frisco campus leaders — after which the church responded by telling pastors not to make the allegations public, Anita told the Star on Saturday Telegram. protest in Southlake.
Church leaders at Gateway’s Frisco campus did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Anita and Nicole say they were verbally attacked by Gateway churchgoers when they tried to publicize the allegations.
“They didn’t want any further fame,” Anita said. “They don’t want the truth.”
“All we did was follow the law. It’s very black and white. If you learn about a child according to the law, you must report it. That’s literally all we did,” says Nicole, Anita’s daughter.
About two months after the Ishees approached church leaders in Frisco, the man — 65-year-old Scott Gerber — was arrested on two charges of molesting a child under 14 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, court records show.
He is awaiting a jury trial and his next scheduled court appearance is in October.
“It’s just very frustrating that there are still families on the Frisco campus who are very supportive and angry at us and attacking us,” Anita said.
The mother and daughter are done with Gateway Church.
“We will never set foot in there again,” Anita said.
“As difficult as it is with what we’ve had to deal with for 18 months, it’s worth it. If we can protect one child from this, it is absolutely worth it,” Anita said in tears. ‘I would do it a thousand times… But it must be exposed.’
