It’s Always the Ones You Most Expect

Pastor with Ties to Trump Indicted on Child Sexual Abuse

As you can imagine, my social media is a bit of a liberal echo chamber. My close friends and family are in rabid agreement on almost all political issues (though rabid agreement can also make for dinner table arguments). I don’t even have a MAGA uncle. I do, however, have a few Trump-supporting high school friends—some of whom I barely remember, some of whom I dated—who pop up on my feed.

I made the mistake of debating one of them during the election and was called “an angry elf with TDS.” I had never heard of TDS and was getting in the car when I read the comment. I asked my 14-year-old to look it up while I drove to her the dentist. She laughed a lot as she read the Wikipedia entry for Trump Derangement Syndrome. Essentially, I am so upset by Donald Trump’s very existence that I irrationally hate everything he does.

Pretty much on the nose except for the irrational part, IMHO.

Apparently, this is something his supporters have been accusing the left of for years. Wikipedia describes it as a “pejorative term” and a way of “reframing the discussion by suggesting that his opponents are incapable of accurately perceiving the world.” There was even a peer-reviewed study done on the topic in 2021. Of course, the results don’t say what my high school boyfriend would like them to say. The authors concluded: “Results of the current study do not support the broad existence of so-called “Trump Derangement Syndrome’ on the left, but they may lend credence to accusations that some Trump supporters have a cult-like loyalty to the 45th president.”

That hasn’t stopped a group of Minnesota Senate Republicans from trying to make it a real thing. They recently introduced a bill to codify TDS as a mental illness. Obviously, these lawmakers are not in charge of the official Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (so good luck getting my insurance to cover my TDS treatment), but they would like this new problem added to the state’s lists of mental health disorders.

The proposed legislation defines the illness a little differently than Wikipedia. It calls it “the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal persons that is in reaction to the policies and presidencies of President Donald J. Trump." It goes on to say that TDS "produces an inability to distinguish between legitimate policy differences and signs of psychic pathology in President Donald J. Trump's behavior."

Which is more likely: that the 74,999,166 people who voted for the other person are all suddenly paranoid or that the 78-year-old guy who can no longer form a complete sentence, forgets how to use his mouth in the middle of speeches, and inexplicably danced on stage for 30 minutes has some psychic pathology?

The introduction of this bill is silly, but it’s also insidious. Minnesota Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy put it this way: "If it is meant as a joke, it is a waste of staff time and taxpayer resources that trivializes serious mental health issues. If the authors are serious, it is an affront to free speech and an expression of a dangerous level of loyalty to an authoritarian president.”

Murphy hit the nail on the head. “He’s not wrong, you’re just crazy,” is the ultimate deflection of criticism.

Trump is a thin-skinned, know-nothing narcissist who wants to be a dictator. He hates criticism so much that his entire second term appears to be based on revenge. The five MN Senators who introduced this bill are kiss-ass, attention-seeking, peons, who want a seat at the grown-up table so badly. I’d say they should be ashamed of themselves for this blatant brown-nosing, but they’d just turn that around and say I don’t get it because I am delusional.

Of course, one of them really should be ashamed of himself. State Sen. Justin Eichorn (R-Grand Rapids) was arrested in Bloomington yesterday after trying to solicit sex from an uncover cop pretending to be a 16-year-old girl. I’m not a psychologist, but I think a 40-year-old man trying to have sex with a teenager is displaying some psychic pathology.

As the story below shows, it’s always the one you most expect.

Republicans and Democrats alike are calling for Eichorn to resign. His TDS bill probably won’t make it onto the floor because even that requires bipartisan agreement in Minnesota right now. And if by any wild chance it passed the Senate, in which Dems have a one vote advantage, Gov. Tim Walz would veto it. Nonetheless, it’s a pathetic statement on the state of our politics.

For those wondering if I commented back after being called an angry elf with TDS, of course I did, and I’m still proud of my response: “Thanks for the accurate diagnosis, but did you have to bring my height into this?”

Texas Pastor Charged With Child Abuse After 43 Years

Last week charges were filed against megachurch pastor Robert Morris whom headlines have described as Trump’s “former spiritual advisor.” (I’ll pause for you all to laugh uproariously at the idea that Trump has ever had a spiritual thought, let alone an advisor, or that he’s ever gone to church for anything other than a photo op.)

Morris has been a convenient tool of the Republican party. In 2016 he served on Trump’s Evangelical Advisory Committee, and in 2020 he was part of the “Roundtable Transition to Greatness,” a fund-raising event that cost a whopping $560,000 per couple. In a likely violation of rules around tax-exempt religious organizations, Morris mobilized his supporters to vote for Trump all three times. He also attended the Rose Garden celebration when Amy Coney Barrett was nominated to the Supreme Court.

Morris championed Governor Greg Abbott’s bathroom bill which forces transgender individuals to use the bathroom based on genitals rather than gender. In a not-at-all-surprising bit of irony he argued the bathroom bill was necessary to protect children from sexual abuse.

Oh Bob, when will everyone learn that it’s men like you that most often do the abusing?

The charges stem from incidents in the 1980s when he was a young traveling preacher. (Did anyone else think that traveling preachers stopped being a thing after say the 1880s?) On Sundays he preached at a church in Hominy, Oklahoma where he met the Clemishire family. They invited him—and sometimes his wife and son—to stay in their home. One night in 1982, he asked their daughter Cindy into his room. She was 12. Cindy has said she’d viewed him as “safe and friendly,” but that he abused her that night and continued to do so for the next five years. She says he told her, “Never tell anyone about this, it would ruin everything.” (Most victims of childhood sex abuse are not named by the press, but Cindy—now 55—has asked that her name be used.

The accusations became widely public last summer. At the time, Morris simultaneously admitted wrongdoing and downplayed what he did. In a statement to local news station WFFA, he wrote, “It was kissing and petting and not intercourse, but it was wrong.” Yes, a**hole, it was wrong. She was 12.

His statement goes on to say:

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. They asked me to stop [sic?] out of ministry and receive counseling and freedom ministry, which I did. Since that time, I have walked in purity and accountability in this area.

This non-apology apology gives me the creeps. First, she was not a “young lady.” She was a child. Let’s not try to make this sound like a misunderstanding between equals. Second, he admits the abuse went on through 1987, meaning he did not stop on his own: he stopped because he got caught. There’s also something incredibly unsettling about the idea that he “submitted” himself to the “young lady’s father.” Did he offer four goats and a milking cow as payment for having rendered her unmarriable?

I was particularly struck by the phrase “it was confessed and repented of.” As a writer, I’m trained to hate the passive voice, but here it seems less like bad writing and more like a purposeful way to put distance between himself and his crime. “It was confessed” is different than “I confessed.”

Finally, while I’m glad that he’s walked in purity and accountability in this area since, that last sentence makes me wonder which areas of his life he has “walked through” with impurity and a complete lack of accountability. (I’m gonna take a wild guess and say taxes. See below.)

Morris has made some less public non-apologies to Cindy over the years as well. When she reached out in 2005 asking for restitution, Morris noted he’d already apologized and been forgiven by her family. He added, “My attorney advises that if I pay you any money under a threat of exposure, you could be criminally prosecuted, and Debbie and I do not want that." (“Are you threatening me?” Watch this.) When she reached out again asking for help with her therapy bills, Morris offered her $25,000 if she signed an NDA. She refused.

Of course nothing that Morris wrote was as bad as what his attorney said when the allegations first came out. In a letter to Clemishire’s attorney, J. Shelby Sharpe, wrote: “It was your client who initiated inappropriate behavior by coming into my client's bedroom and getting in bed with him, which my client should not have allowed to happen." Oh my f**king god, she was 12. (Last year, J. Shelby Sharp, Esq.—who was clearly named after a a soap opera villain—was temporarily suspended from practicing laws for “acts unbecoming of an attorney” in an unrelated case. Blaming the victim in this case is more like “acts unbecoming of a human being.”)

Morris was only indicted last week, but he resigned from his position as pastor and founder of Gateway Church in June when the story emerged. His wife and son resigned their positions at the church as well, and three elders took leaves of absence. An internal investigation revealed that multiple members of the church staff and leadership group (elders) knew about the alleged abuse for years and failed to report it. (One anonymous elder says that they were told that Morris had cheated on his wife but had no idea the incidents he was discussing involved a child.) Morris’s resignation also brought attention to a 2020 lawsuit accusing church staff of covering up other allegations of child sexual abuse. That case was settled in May.

Gateway Church, which has a weekly attendance of over 25,000 people, is far from the only Texas church struggling with abuse charges. Cross Timbers Church had trouble coming up with a suitable replacement when lead pastor Josiah Anthony resigned in July over comments and texts to adult women that were “hurtful,” “inappropriately personal,” and possibly “sexual in nature.” (I can’t tell whether that’s code for unsolicited dick pics à la Carlos Danger, or, perhaps, it was something more like, “My, my, you looked demure and slutty in that little dress you wore on Sunday morning. Wear it again next week.”)

Initially, he was replaced by executive pastor Byron Copeland, but then it came out that Copeland was named in a lawsuit alleging aggressive behavior toward a female employee when he worked for Gateway Church in Southlake. Apparently, he pushed her into a corner and threatened to fire her if she didn’t stop stirring up trouble. (“Are you threatening me?” Seriously, watch this.) The trouble she was stirring up, by the way, was reporting unwanted sexual advances by their boss, now-former Gateway pastor Al Pearson.

Lakeside Baptist fired youth pastor Luke Cunningham in June after he was arrested and charged with sexual assault of a child, aggravated sexual assault of a child, and indecency with a child by sexual contact. The crimes were committed between 2016 and 2018 when he was a student pastor at Turning Point Community Church in Lubbock, Texas. Similarly, Terren Dames of the North Dallas Community Bible Fellowship in Plano was arrested in May for offering an undercover cop $150 for sex. And Craig Stone of Willowwood Church of the Nazarene in Denton was charged with indecency with a child and possession of child pornography after parents reported inappropriate behavior with teenagers.

As these dominoes fell, several other church leaders in Texas resigned admitting only to undisclosed “sins” and “moral failures.” Others left despite continuing to maintain they were guilty of absolutely nothing.

I am not a psychologist or an expert on any religion, but megachurches seem like a setting ripe for abuse. These men are powerful, revered, and trusted. Adults look up to them. Parents give them access to their children. Children are told to respect them and follow instructions. Not unlike the football players, politicians, and rock stars who’ve been accused of abuse in recent years, it’s been a long time since anyone has said no to these men. They’ve likely started believing their own hype and expecting others to do what they want willingly, if not eagerly. Add to that an environment in which men seem to have more power than women, children are expected to blindly obey authority, and there are a lot of rules around sex that are mired in guilt and shame. What you get seems like a perfect storm.

I’m not saying that all pastors of megachurches are bad guys or that the evangelical church supports sexual abuse (though I’m starting to understand how supposedly religious people could support a nasty, thrice-married, sexual predator as president). In truth, it shouldn’t be any of my business what these men say from behind the pulpit or what their parishioners believe. But they make it all of our business when they support anti-trans, anti-gay legislation and try to use their religious power to influence elections.

Moreover, these churches rake in millions of dollars and do not pay taxes. Religious institutions have a special designation that means they don’t have to pay income tax, sales tax, property taxes, or taxes on their investments. That makes sense when you’re dealing with the local parish on the corner which runs a soup kitchen and has AA meetings in the basement every Tuesday and Thursday, but these megachurches are huge businesses that have made their leaders very wealthy. In 2024, Morris was estimated to have a net worth of $117 million dollars and lived in a house worth $1.7 million that he doesn’t have to pay property taxes on.

It’s difficult to know exactly how much religious institutions would have to pay in taxes if they were not given special status, but estimates range from $8 billion to $71 billion per year. Remember, this special status is given because they are religious institutions, as opposed to for-profit-businesses or political action committees.

The tax-free life becomes harder to swallow when pastors like Landon Schott of the non-denominational Mercy Culture Church in Dallas-Fort Worth area says flat out during a Presidential election, “You’re not a Christian if you vote for a Democrat.” Schott, who used to work for Morris at Gateway Church, later doubled down saying that Democrats support idol worship, perversion, and child sacrifice. (If they do, I’ve never been invited.)

And yet, it’s fellow Texas Republicans who have had to step down one by one in recent months.

Morris turned himself over to authorities on Monday and was expected to plead not guilty and be let out on $50,000 bail. His indictment hinged in part on the fact that he was not an Oklahoma resident. Had he lived in Oklahoma at the time of the abuse, a statute of limitation would have prevented him from being charged this many years later.

Cindy Clemishire thanked authorities, “After almost 43 years, the law has finally caught up with Robert Morris for the horrific crimes he committed against me as a child. Now, it is time for the legal system to hold him accountable.”

That’s not something the legal system is doing a lot of these days, but here’s hoping.