Lawyers for Donald Trump’s former faith advisor Robert Morris accused a 12-year-old girl of initiating “inappropriate” sexual conduct with the ex-Dallas megachurch pastor, new documents have revealed.
Morris resigned in June after admitting to the incident. His accuser Cindy Clemishire previously claimed that the pastor had begun abusing her on Christmas Day in 1982.
Clemishire, now 52, said that Morris and his wife had been staying at her family home at the time when he asked her to come into his room, whereafter he told her to lay on his bed and then began touching her inappropriately.
She said the abuse had continued until 1987 when she told her parents.
However, 25 years after the incident, a lawyer for Morris – J Shelby Sharpe – claimed that it was the child who was actually to blame.
interesting-- and where was their all-powerful, all-seeing sky-wizard during all of this? why was it powerless to stop this from happening? where was their “superior morality” to stop them? why it is, with an all-powerful sky-wizard, a superior morality, and an adult - a pastor - present, is it the fault of a 12 year-old?
I’m pretty sure the answer is that sky-daddy sent the little girl to test the pastor, that he might endure this challenge and come out a better man for the lesson. Sky-daddy doesn’t give agency to women or children - they serve only as props in the narrative of men’s lives.
Well, he certainly failed that test then.
It’s ok. He said 3 Hail Marys and abstained from meat and alcohol for half a day. He’s safe.
You’re giving them too much credit. “God works in mysterious ways” is what they say when kids get molested or die horribly.
Well, something that doesn’t exist would be powerless to stop them.
i really wish this argument would work in court
He was watching and enjoying it
Perfect reason to keep the death penalty.
This is the best the lawyers could come up with? He very clearly scraped the bottom of the barrel when looking for legal representation
That might be one of the most demented defenses they could have come up with.
Ex-fucking-excuse me? Not just victim blaming, but victim blaming a child? I fucking hate living on this planet. Just launch me into the sun already.
When I see the most depraved defense from lawyers like this it just tells me that the person is so fucking guilty that I now suspect them guilty of even more than we know.
You know, I’m only five years younger than him, and yet never in my life since I was about 12 years old myself has a 12-year-old so much as flirted with me. This 52-year-old is somehow irresistible to the middle schoolers?
How often do adults flirt with you?
Before I could drive and had to walk everywhere??? DAILY
Between when I was 12 and now? Enough to be married for almost 24 years.
I have had a 12 year old flirt with me. It was cute, and I wasn’t tempted to molest her because I’m not insane.
I believe you, but I’m guessing it’s not especially common for a girl as young as 12. They barely understand the concept of flirtation at that age, and these days they probably think they know about sex by seeing internet porn when their parents didn’t know about it.
Anyway, like you said, it’s pretty easy to just not touch the girl.
It’s cute when a kid has a crush like that, but that’s all it is, a crush. From someone who doesn’t understand what romance is beyond what’s in pop culture. It’s cute and wholesome.
An adult seeing that and going “hmm, what if” is the exact fucking opposite of cute and wholesome. They’re a freaky ass fella who needs to be locked up.
Providing just a small correction here. The child was 12 at the time, now 52.
Robert Morris (the accused sexual predator former pastor of the rapist, racist, sexist, traitor, “Christian”, beloved friend of Jeffrey Epstein, and convicted felon Donald Trump) was 22 at the time and now 62.
A 22 year old preying and praying on a 12 year old. Just so disgusting.
Whoops. Sorry. And yeah, no 12-year-old ever flirted with me when I was 22 either. And if they did, I would be smart enough not to reciprocate even if I was interested, which I wouldn’t have been.
No prob! I just had to internet search this pastor because I wanted to know just how old his gross ass was when he did that. I think most functioning persons in society would have the same mindset as you shared.
You seem cool…can we launch THEM into the sun instead?
How about we just launch maga into the sun and then work on saving humanity and our planet.
Easier to launch them out of the solar system
The child rapist has literally no defense, so his lawyer is trying the “she was asking for it” card.
The sad part is that this is not a ceiminal case, as there was a statue of limitations back when he was raping her. There no longer is, but that doesnt help her. All she can do is sue him civally. Still, “the 12 year old in pajamas was asking for it” is not gonna help here.
Lawyers are obligated to defend even obviously guilty people, but seriously? Victim blaming a child?
I get it, it’s hard to come up with a tenable legal defense when someone is starkly guilty, but this is just gross.
Yeah thanks for pointing out something that sort of tickled my brain for a while now and made the thought full formed. I’m going to start pointing this out because it is WILD that we have a culture of saving children from the predators and then also blaming children for being preyed on. And it’s just the one side.
How much hypocrisy can someone swallow ffs???
So just “megachurch pastor” headline? No other descriptors you’d like to add?
Buddy of mine’s 12-yo stepdaughter was flirting with him when they watched movies. He was horrified and confused.
“Dude, she’s just testing her feminine wiles on you since she sees you as safe, kinda testing her attractiveness. Doesn’t even have a clue she’s doing it. Just ignore it or gently push back if she goes too far.”
And of course all was well. Thought it was a cute and funny story.
And we have lawyers trying to slide this defense?! Not to mention the guy who took it seriously and raped a child! I swear to god they used to threaten disbarment over stupid shit like this.
tl;dr Kids do stupid shit when they start puberty. It’s on the adult to see what’s happening.
I’m in my late thirties and I have to remind myself when a younger twenty-something girl comes on to me, that is never going to work and I have to be the mature one to shut it down.
lol I like the comment but it comes across a little “look what I can do still”
That is not what I meant but I don’t know how to explain it without sounding like a douche.
The point I’m trying to make is that you have to recognize your place in life and use that as reference to help other people around you.
FWIW I understood what you were saying. I am a linguist which means I’m sensitive to differing meanings that the same words and phrases have. I happened to notice it on your comment and thought it was funny.
I like the comment but comes off a little “look what I can do”.
And that’s an alternative meaning that can be divined from the original statement. It was also funny.
I get what you’re saying, but let’s chill out on the infantilization of women.
A 20-something-year-old woman doesn’t compare to a 12-year-old.
And maybe the 20-something-year-old woman hitting on you just wants to have fun and is not thinking about anything working out with you. Presume much?
How old are you? I agree with your infantilization comment but you’re wrong here. I’m middle aged. A girl in her 20s literally looks like a child to me and the older I get, the more I see it’s fucking gross when older men date women that make them feel like they’re fucking little girls.
You must be looking at the wrong 20yr olds, take a walk around a university campus and tell me they’re kids.
And how old are you?
I’m old enough to look at 22yr olds and see them as grown women. Pretty gross to see them as anything less honestly.
Anything less? Different isn’t less. I didn’t say less. Distraction.
I hire and mentor women that age. I still think anyone that age, whether their gender, looks like a kid, when you’re older. And I don’t like fucking kids, or adults that look like kids. How gross of me.
So how old are you? Old enough to second guess how you’re going to be received by responding directly?
You’re really protecting a lot onto the other guys comments, dude. I’m only 30 and 20yr Olds look like children, both men and women. It has literally nothing to do with disrespect and everything to do perception of others as you age.
That’s why they kept asking you your age. You’re clearly also a child who doesn’t understand it yet.
The original commenter said
that is never going to work and I have to be the mature one to shut it down.
They didn’t say anything about women being or looking like children.
It’s not infantilizing to recognize that, for them, being at significantly different life stages would not be the kind of relationship they want.
I get what you’re saying. The way I look at it is that it’s different phases of life. At nearly 30 I really can’t relate to someone still in college. Maybe a senior at best. I’d be flattered if they came onto me, but they’re just too young for me. That doesn’t mean they’re like a 12 year old. It just means I want to date someone I can more closely relate to and who’s had experience living and working after college.
There’s a maturity factor too. I was waaaaay less mature back in my early 20s and drank and partied a lot. That’s how it should be, I’m not knocking people for doing that. Being less mature isn’t a bad thing when you’re actually young, and you should have fun while you are. There’s nothing wrong with that.
This is why I can’t fathom 30+ year old men being interested in even 18 or 19 year olds. They’re less mature (again, as they should be!) and at a very different stage in life. It’s creepy to actually want to date them.
You’re correct, but keep in mind your example is still legal! The article we are discussing is not.
Even Nabokov didn’t say Lolita made Humbert Humbert do it.
Well… He did make the character Humbert Humbert say it, though.
“Frigid gentlewomen of the jury! I had thought that months, perhaps years, would elapse before I dared to reveal myself to Dolores haze; but by six she was wide awake, and by six fifteen we were technically lovers. I am going to tell you something very strange: it was she who seduced me.”
Yeah, but he made Humbert say it to show what a despicable person he was.
God reminds me of a Manga i had to stop reading. Bunch of bad ass women and a loser isekai main character. For some reason all the women were hell bent on being his ‘slaves’ for lack of a better word. They kept making these speeches about how they were inferior and their duty was to the man and all these obscene backwards ideas. I Google the author and sure enough dude is an alt right dbag. He only ever made the women characters say these deamening things like if that made it better or gave them some sort of credibility.
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I refuse to read anything after the headline to keep my blood below boiling point. Did I miss anything?
If anything, it gets worse.
Oh by Zeus,.may the gods have mercy for I have none.
Can’t buy alcohol. Can’t buy cigarettes. Can’t be employed in most jobs. Can’t get a drivers license. But can initiate sex with an adult?
They can certainly attempt to, particularly if they’ve previously been abused by a caregiver. It’s totally something you’re trained to deal with if you work with vulnerable children, as it’s a major indicator of this. Teenagers are a bit different as they are exploring their sexuality and may incorporate this into disruptive behaviour if they notice it gets a reaction. Neither of these situations would serve as a legal defence, however, were you to start joining in. A colleague had a fourteen-year-old girl in a hitched-up skirt come and sit on his lap and pout because he told her off in class. He just stared at the wall until she got off, then went and reported it.
Yeah - if you are a teacher you ALWAYS leave the door cracked open, never alone with a kid.
Those kinds of kids almost always have genuinely experienced sexual abuse elsewhere. I’m working with a child who does exhibit that kind of behavior - propositioning adults/other teens and then claiming assault when rejected. The thing with kids and false allegations is that they are usually wildly inconsistent - as long as organizational safeguards are in place, it’s usually easy to verify that the claimed event didn’t happen. It is a STRONG indicator for previous experiences of abuse though.
This case is not at all consistent with what false allegations look like.
“I put it to you, your honour, that that child is sexy.”
Pro-tip: if a child comes on to you…fucking DONT!
oh man. this is so hilariously close to an onion article from way back. https://www.theonion.com/pope-forgives-molested-children-1819566450
religion strikes again. it’s almost like the world would be a better place without it.
before you come with the ‘shitty people can be anywhere’, ask yourself would this person have been emboldened to act on their sociopathic desires without having religion to hide behind?
The old switcharoo
