cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/47246639
Cindy Clemishire, 55, the woman who publicly identified herself as the victim of Morris’s sexual abuse, was present in the courtroom as he pleaded guilty. In a prepared statement she told him: “There is no such thing as consent from a 12-year-old child. We were never in an ‘inappropriate relationship.’ I was not a ‘young lady’ but a child. You committed a crime against me.”
A leaked transcript of a phone call revealed that in 2005 Morris tried to bribe Clemishire into silence, telling her to “put a price on it”.
He also became a spiritual adviser to Donald Trump. He joined the White House spiritual advisory committee during the first Trump presidency and was part of a campaign to mobilize evangelical voters for him in last year’s presidential campaign.
Trump also visited Gateway church in 2020 where he praised Morris and his senior team as “great people with a great reputation”.
The whole MAP thing was started by conservatives to try and delegitimize the LGBTQ+ groups. There has been a well documented campaign to equate LGBTQ+ folks as pedophiles, and the MAP thing was just another astroturfed branch of that campaign.
It was an attempt to weaponize tolerance (another common tactic among the right) to equate pedos with gay people, then clutch their pearls and go “look! Gay people support pedophiles!”