Guest Column: “There Is No Mama”
A recent video exposed the injustice at the heart of same-sex marriage and commercial surrogacy. In it, a man bouncing a baby on his lap asks, “Who do you want? Dada or Pop?” The baby answered, “Mama!” To which, both the man and his unseen partner behind the camera laughed and said, “There is no Mama.” They continue to badger the child, who then begins to cry.
The most obvious evil portrayed in the video is the relentless teasing of a baby. The deeper evil, however, is not that the men were mean. In fact, being mean was only the insult added to the injury of forcing their farcical arrangement on a baby and calling it a family.
Because, and everyone knows this including these two men suppressing the truth by their wickedness, there is a mama. She is not included in the video, nor is she in the life of the baby she carried and who needs her, but she exists. She’s been cut out of her child’s life, presumably by her own choice. The baby, however, did not make a choice. And now two men who have appropriated the title of “parents” are badgering the baby into affirming their lifestyle choice.
Perhaps, the infant is only doing what infants often do, babbling out those syllables that are often among the first learned by young ones across times and places and culture. But of course, these syllables always refer to the same person. They are, in the end, a primal cry of children for a particular someone who should always be there for them.
Anyone who has spent time around babies understands what is playing out in this scene. For little ones, mama is the world. In fact, according to childhood policy expert Dr. Dan Wuori, kids often say “Dada” before “Mama” not because the mom doesn’t matter as much but because she matters so much more. In their tiny, growing minds, they recognize “Dad” as a distinct person before they realize that “Mom” isn’t part of themselves. This innate and beautiful bond is intentionally broken when we pretend that a man can replace a mom, or whenever a child is acquired through surrogacy.
Just as tragic is the embrace of same-sex “marriage” or such reproductive technologies by individuals, governments, medical authorities, and Christians, while failing to even take a cursory glance to consider what is best for the child. Any ethical concerns around in vitro fertilization and surrogacy have been deferred in order to protect the feelings and desires of adults. In fact, both in policy and in public discourse, we’ve lost the ability to even discern the difference between couples who suffer with infertility and same-sex couples who have chosen inherently sterile relationships but then demand children. As a result, what children need is tossed aside in the name of adult desires. Children become commodities in the marketplace of consumer-driven reproductive technologies.
As Katy Faust, founder of the children’s rights group Them Before Us and the Greater Than campaign, said to the Colson Center:
We’ve been sounding the alarm about surrogacy for years. The mother loss, the commodification, the fact that children often go home with unrelated adults, increasing risk of abuse and neglect. But videos like this do something that arguments and studies never can. They spark righteous rage that leads people to come out of the closet as defenders of the natural family. It is more and more clear that gay marriage didn’t just have to do with what takes place “in the privacy of the bedroom.” It impacts children. And when we see those children cry on camera, it motivates us to action.
It should, at least. The word “natural” is accurate. Having chosen unnatural relationships, to quote Paul, these two dads now demand that even a baby must affirm what is unnatural. Even if they had not made that demand in such a cruel way in a video shared for social media clicks, great harm has been done to this child. And a culture that affirms their choice is complicit in that harm.
Babies need their mamas. There are few things more obvious than that. Denying that reality is a tragedy. Harming children should be a crime.
Copyright 2026 by the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. Reprinted from BreakPoint.org with permission.
Basketball Team’s Full Court Press for Religious Liberty Pays Off
A Christian school in Vermont recently won a major legal victory — and the price tag for violating its constitutional rights was steep.
The Mid Vermont Christian School (MVCS) believes that human beings are created either male or female. In 2023, the MVCS girls’ basketball team decided to forfeit a game rather than violate its religious convictions by forcing its girls to play against a team with a male player. But the Vermont Principals Association decided to punish the school for forfeiting the game by kicking it out of the sports league. That led to a major court battle — and a victory for MVCS.
Now the Vermont Principals Association has agreed to pay a $566,000 settlement for damages and attorneys’ fees to Mid Vermont Christian School.
Our friends at Alliance Defending Freedom represented the school in court. ADF Senior Counsel David Cortman put it plainly: “The government cannot punish religious schools — and the families they serve — by permanently kicking them out of state-sponsored sports simply because the state disagrees with their religious beliefs.”
Stories like this one are part of the reason Arkansas passed Act 461 by Sen. Missy Irvin (R — Mountain View) and Rep. Sonia Barker (R — Smackover) in 2021 to protects fairness in women’s sports in Arkansas.
Letting men compete in women’s sports is unfair and reverses 50 years of advancements for women. Female cyclists, swimmers, powerlifters, sprinters, volleyball players, and others have seen their sports radically changed by men who claim to be women. In some cases it can even be dangerous.
Right now the U.S. Supreme Court is considering a federal case that could affect state laws like Arkansas’ Act 461. Family Council joined dozens of state policy organizations and more than 200 state legislators in a legal brief in that case last September.
Most Americans agree that athletes should compete according to their biological sex — not their gender identity. This settlement between Mid Vermont Christian School and the Vermont Principals Association is a victory for religious freedom, fairness in girls’ sports, and common sense.
Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.