Two gay men who crowdfunded their so-called surrogacy journey are now raising a baby boy, despite one of the men, Brandon Keith Riley-Mitchell, being a convicted child sex offender. The two men, Logan Riley and Riley-Mitchell, gained viral attention online after posting a video introducing their newborn son. But the story took a disturbing turn after Irish activist Derek Blighe reposted the video on July 27, prompting questions about one of the man’s identity and background.
According to police and court records shared in various news stories, Riley-Mitchell was convicted of felony child pornography possession and one count of corruption of minors for exchanging over 12,000 messages with a teenage male student while teaching at Downingtown West High School in Pennsylvania. The conversations included graphic sexual content, instructions to delete communications, and the transfer of nude photos and videos, some of which were recovered from Mitchell’s devices. Unfortunately, despite the seriousness of the charges, Mitchell was paroled just two months into his sentence.
Part of his sentencing included a requirement that he have no unsupervised contact with minors and that he give up his teaching license. Riley-Mitchell went on to obtain a job as a chemist in Lancaster, where he has worked for the past 9 years.
Under current Pennsylvania law, adoption would have triggered mandatory background checks, home studies, and judicial review, disqualifying Riley-Mitchell from obtaining custody. He also would have been disqualified to be a foster parent under Pennsylvania law. In fact, he would not even pass the requirements to be a youth sports coach, which require criminal and sexual abuse background checks. But the couple hired a woman to carry a baby through a surrogacy agreement, allowing them to bypass those safeguards entirely.
Jeremy Samek from the Pennsylvania Family Council, warns “the absence of those protections are not a mere oversight or loophole, as the Pennsylvania House passed a bill this year that treats children born through surrogacy as second-class, denying them the same safety checks—like background checks and home studies—required for adopted children or foster children placed with unrelated adults in non-surrogacy contexts.”
The Pennsylvania Senate has not taken action on that bill yet.
The two men launched a GoFundMe campaign in 2023 to raise money to pay the surrogate for the baby, which Mitchell promoted on his LinkedIn professional profile.
“This baby is being raised by a convicted pedophile,” said Katy Faust, CEO of ThemBeforeUs, on social platform X. She added, “For a decade, family policy and narrative has been adult therapy, making grown-ups the victims when they don’t get what they want. Newsflash: kids are the real victims when we screw this up.”
The organization posted, “We hate to say we told you so, but… unlike adoption agencies, #BigFertility conducts no screenings of ‘intended’ parents, placing children in unstable, risky, unmonitored households. This is bound to happen with surrogacy.”
This isn’t an isolated failure. In Los Angeles a few weeks ago, authorities removed 21 children, most of them infants and toddlers, from the home of a couple accused of child neglect and endangerment. You read that correctly…21 children. Let that sink in. All the birth certificates listed the purchaser in the surrogacy agreement as the mother. Authorities became aware of the couple after one of the infants was taken to a hospital with a traumatic head injury. Reports indicate that the children were born via paid surrogates. There are currently pregnant women under agreement to give more children to the couple, including a Pennsylvania woman. At the root, California and Pennsylvania are considered “surrogacy-friendly” states. This growing pattern of abuse underscores the urgent need for state laws that put the safety and dignity of children first.
These two cases in the news are why we are renewing calls to reject Pennsylvania House Bill 350, the so-called “Uniform Parentage Act,” which recently passed the House 112–91.
The bill would even further codify “loopholes” like these (read: loss of protections). It would redefine parenthood based solely on intent, allowing unrelated adults to be listed on birth certificates without adoption, judicial oversight, or screening. It would also expand commercial surrogacy arrangements and eliminate protections that prioritize the child’s best interest. Passing the Uniform Parentage Act would enable further abuses like these.
“The safety and well-being of children should be paramount when considering such legislation, not the ease by which adults can contract for the creation of a child. House Bill 350 fails to address those concerns,” said retired Judge Cheryl Allen, Of Counsel at Independence Law Center.
“Children are not commodities,” warned Tom Shaheen, VP of Policy. “They deserve protection, identity, and the right to be connected to their biological origins.” To learn more about this issue, click here.
The Pennsylvania Family Institute is urging Pennsylvania residents to contact their state senators and encourage them to oppose House Bill 350.
House Bill 350, also known as the “Uniform Parentage Act,” poses serious concerns for the rights of children, the dignity of women, and the integrity of family.
The Uniform Parentage Act treats children as commodities. It would remove current safeguards for children created via surrogacy that are currently in place for the adoption process. It would allow unrelated adults to be named on birth certificates without adoption or proper screening. It eliminates protections that currently ensure the best interest of the child, such as judicial review and the adoption process, and opens the door for children to be treated as property in commercial surrogacy and even paid sexual arrangements for conception.
