Cindy Clemishire is asking the Texas Supreme Court to review her defamation lawsuit against Gateway Church, Robert Morris, his wife and former church elders after it was dismissed by a Dallas appeals court last month.
In a court filing, Clemishire’s attorneys argue that Southlake-based Gateway Church should not receive legal protections or church immunity for allegedly shielding any information it knew about the sexual abuse from Morris.
“Texas should be the last place in America where a child sexual abuse survivor is told that the courthouse doors are closed because the people she is trying to hold accountable happened to lead a church,” state Rep. Jeff Leach, one of Clemishire’s attorneys, said in a press release. “Religious liberty is one of our most fundamental freedoms. But religious liberty cannot mean religious immunity. Protecting a predator is not theology, and defaming his victim is not church doctrine.”
An attorney for Gateway declined to comment to KERA News Wednesday. KERA News also reached out to Morris’ attorney and will update this story with any response.
It comes after The Fifth District Court of Appeals in August dismissed all claims in Clemishire’s suit against Gateway, three former church elders and most claims against Morris. It sided with their argument that questioning the megachurch’s internal probe into Morris would be interfering in church matters – which would violate the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine deriving from the First Amendment.
The ecclesiastical abstention doctrine, or church autonomy, protects religious institutions from interference from the government or civil courts. But Clemishire’s court filing maintains Gateway cannot claim church autonomy in any statements involving Clemishire as she was never part of the church.
“The ecclesiastical-abstention doctrine exists to keep courts out of disputes that those who united themselves to the church agreed to resolve within the church,” the court filing read. “It does not exist to protect what a church says about outsiders who never agreed to anything. Under the court of appeals’ decisions, it now does both.”
It also states Clemishire’s claims are not about Gateway’s internal management decisions, but rather use of what it knew when it published alleged defamatory statements about Clemishire.
Clemishire’s lawsuit
The request stems from Clemishire’s lawsuit filed in June 2025. Among several things, Clemishire claimed Gateway defamed her in a series of statements after she came forward about the abuse from Morris, allegedly covered it up for years and financially benefiting from it.
Elders released a statement on June 14, 2024, acknowledging Morris’ sexual abuse. It also said he had been involved in “inappropriate sexual behavior” with a “young lady,” and that her family forgave him.
Clemishire argued those statements downplayed the assault.
The Fifth District Court of Appeals reversed a trial court’s decision that denied motions to dismiss Gateway and elders John Willbanks, Kenneth Fambro and Dane Minor from the suit.
Gateway and the former elders had cited the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine as reasons to be dismissed from the suit — a legal rule stemming from the First Amendment protecting religious institutions from government interference.
A Dallas judge denied those motions last November.
The appellate court sided with Gateway and the elders, writing courts should be careful not to intrude in church governance – as Gateway has a Board of Elders handling church affairs -- and that churches have the rights to establish their own internal rules and regulations for resolving disputes over religious matters.
All but one of the claims in the suit against Morris were also dismissed in a separate opinion.
Morris stepped down as lead pastor of Gateway in June 2024 after Clemishire came forward that he sexually abused her in the 1980s when she was 12 and he was 22.
He pleaded guilty last October to five counts of lewd or indecent acts to a child. Morris was required to serve six months of a 10-year sentence in an Oklahoma jail, where the abuse took place. He was released at the end of March, is a registered sex offender in Texas and was required to pay Clemishire $270,000.
Trey’s Law
The case also comes after Texas lawmakers last year approved Senate Bill 835, nicknamed Trey’s Law and authored by Leach. The bill completely ban nondisclosure agreements in cases of sexual assault, including in cases of child sexual abuse and human trafficking. It went into effect September 2025.
Leach in a press release argued the same principle is at the center of Clemishire’s case -- that Texas law should protect survivors’ ability to seek accountability within institutions that hold such power.
Trey’s Law is also making its way through Congress after Sen. Ted Cruz introduced the legislation earlier this year. It unanimously passed the Senate in May and is awaiting approval by the House of Representatives.
Penelope Rivera is KERA's Tarrant County Accountability Reporter. Got a tip? Email Penelope Rivera at privera@kera.org.
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