The Texas Supreme Court is being asked Thursday to revive a lawsuit filed by the woman who was sexually abused by Gateway Church founding pastor Robert Morris four decades ago.
Cindy Clemishire and her father filed the $1 million defamation suit in Dallas County in June 2025. The suit alleges Morris, his wife, Debbie, along with former and current elders, knew about Robert Morris’ abuse and made millions of dollars from his “moral failures and rape of plaintiff, Cindy Clemishire.”
The abuse began in Oklahoma when Clemishire was 12 years old and lasted four-and-a-half years.
Appeals court decision
In August, the Fifth District Court of Appeals in Dallas ordered the case be dismissed, saying secular courts cannot intervene in church governance. The decision cited what’s known as the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine, which “prohibits civil courts from delving into matters of theological controversy, church discipline, ecclesiastical government, or the conformity of members of the church to the standard of morals required of them.”…