How do you ‘normalize’ this?

Do you remember the names of William and Zachary Zulock? We covered the case of the two men males “married” to each other who adopted two young boys for the purposes of child rape and production of child pornography, not so much about their crimes, but on the notable lack of interest by the credentialed media in covering so sensational a story.

We did point out that Zachary Zulock was “a Biden voter and ardent Black Lives Matter advocate who championed left-wing causes on Facebook”, so we knew that he was obviously guilty.

The only good news in that story is that, over a year later, both men males pleaded guilty and were each sentenced to 100 years in prison without the possibility of parole. We saw no national media outlets reporting that, either.

If the Zulock’s case was extreme, it’s not as rare as you might think. From this morning’s Philadelphia Inquirer:

Former Chester County sex offender conceives child via surrogacy, spurring calls to close legal loophole

A viral video of 39-year-old Brandon Riley-Mitchell, his partner, and the child has drawn widespread attention to the issue.

by Jesse Bunch | Nagasaki Day, August 9, 2025 | 5:00 AM EDT

Logan Riley and Brandon Mitchell playing with ‘their’ baby. Via Collin Rugg on Twitter. Naturally, the Inquirer did not publish his photo.

In July, a right-wing influencer shared a video to X of a same-sex York County couple smiling and playing with their infant.“Unless a miracle happens, this child has almost no chance at a normal life,” the influencer wrote on the social media platform. The post garnered nearly 40,000 likes, generating a flurry of anti-LGBTQ responses.

To the surprise of absolutely no one, columnist Will Bunch’s son did not include the name or link back to the “right-wing influencer” he mentioned.

Now the content is stirring conversation in a different context: One member of the couple featured in the video, Brandon Riley-Mitchell, is a registered sex offender who may have exploited a Pennsylvania legal loophole when conceiving the child via surrogacy.

Riley-Mitchell, 39, was a chemistry teacher at Downingtown West High School in 2016 when he was convicted on charges of sexually abusing a minor and possession of child pornography. The former West Chester resident carried on a sexually inappropriate relationship via thousands of text messages with an underage student at the school for more than a year, according to local media reports.

The conviction meant Riley-Mitchell was jailed for about three months and sentenced to probation, and ordered to have no unsupervised contact with minors, placed on a registry, among other state requirements for convicted sex offenders.

Well, there’s the first part of the problem: Mr Riley-Mitchell was locked up for 90 days rather than 90 years!

According to Collin Rugg, Logan Riley, the other half of this ‘couple,’ is a second-grade teacher, and I have to ask: why would a second-grade teacher ever marry a previously convicted child sex offender? I can see where the parents at whatever school Mr Riley teaches demanding that he be removed from the classroom.

We should specify here that neither partner has been accused of any sexual abuse toward ‘their’ son, though a whole lot of people would see the situation as worrisome.

While state law bars convicted sex offenders from adopting or fostering a child, there is no such restriction on a sex offender seeking surrogacy.

Parents who choose to conceive through surrogacy typically apply for a pre-birth order, making them, rather than the surrogate mother, the child’s legal guardians from the moment of birth. Otherwise, prospective parents would technically need to adopt the baby and become subject to background checks. It is unclear whether Riley-Mitchell and his partner obtained a pre-birth order.

The article goes on to tell us that it has not been determined whether Mr Mitchell or Mr Riley is the biological father of the child. The issue sort of goes away if there has been no pre-birth order, and pursuing a legal adoption has to be done. If Mr Mitchell is not the biological father, he would be the one who had to adopt the child, and he’d be legally barred from that.

More, according to Newsweek, the surrogate mother is not even the biological mother:

Logan Riley announced in November 2023 that the couple had found a surrogate after creating four embryos through an egg donor program in 2020.

“After three long years of searching, a family friend… reached out in early 2023 to see if we were still looking,” the since-deleted fundraiser read. “After multiple conversations and a great connection with her family, we decided to proceed. Our surrogate went through extensive medical and social worker evaluations in order to be approved for surrogacy. Once approved, the lengthy legal and financial process began. We are so excited that our amazing surrogate will carry one of our embryos for us, helping to expand our family!”

The entire system of legal surrogacy is fouled up, and it cannot helped but to be so. It is the deliberate creation of a child who will not be the child of woman who gives birth to him, for that child to be given to other people. There’s just no way to ‘normalize’ something like that!