Loophole Grants Fatherhood to Convicted Sex Offender

At Texas Family Project, we are unwavering in our commitment to safeguarding children, upholding parental rights, and promoting policies that place the well-being of the innocent above all else. The disturbing case of Logan Riley and Brandon Keith Mitchell exemplifies the dangerous consequences when progressive agendas prioritize adult desires over child protection.

In a story that has rightfully sparked outrage across social media, this Pennsylvania-based same-sex couple welcomed a newborn baby boy via surrogacy, despite Brandon Mitchell being a registered Tier 1 sex offender with a prior conviction for child sexual exploitation. Mitchell, a former high school chemistry teacher, was arrested in 2016 after soliciting a 16-year-old male student for sexual acts, exchanging over 12,000 text messages, sending nude photos of himself, and possessing hundreds of explicit videos of the minor on his laptop. He pleaded guilty to felony child pornography possession and sexual abuse of a minor, serving just two months in jail before parole, during which he was barred from unsupervised contact with children and forced to surrender his teaching license. 

Mitchell married Logan Riley, a second-grade teacher from Maryland, in 2021. The pair then pursued surrogacy, launching a GoFundMe campaign in 2023 titled "Help Us Expand Our Family," aiming to raise $50,000. They ultimately collected over $2,000 from donors, none of whom were informed of Mitchell's past in the campaign description. By November 2023, they had secured a surrogate who underwent medical and social evaluations. It's unclear if she knew about Mitchell's conviction. The child was born, and the couple shared a video celebrating the first birthday of the child, which amassed millions of views on platforms like X.

This case exposes the flaws in a system that treats children as accessories to adult lifestyles rather than prioritizing their safety. At Texas Family Project, we fight against the erosion of traditional values, oppose the sexualization of youth in schools and gender experimentation on minors, and now, the exploitation of loopholes that endanger babies. Biology matters: Children deserve a mother and father, not experimental arrangements that ignore red flags like prior child sex convictions.

We demand immediate action! We must close loopholes in surrogacy nationwide and mandate the full disclosure of criminal histories while applying adoption-level scrutiny to all paths to parenthood. 

Texans, stand with us. Contact your legislators, support pro-family bills, and join Texas Family Project in protecting vulnerable Texans. Visit TexasFamilyProject.com to learn more and get involved. Children's lives depend on it!