Snark aside: the goal is Mars because it might be possible to colonize the planet and to have a place that acts as a reserve for humanity should shit really hit the fan (i.e. WW3).
The moon isn't suitable as much for that purpose due to a complete lack of any atmosphere and because it's too close to Earth.
The problem with using a space station as a waypoint on the way to and from the surface of a remote body is that it make the mission more expensive. For example, the Lunar Gateway increases the delta-v requirement by 15-20% (can't remember exact number) compared to a more direct mission. Which then, all else being equal, increases the total mission cost by much more than 15-20% because the rocket equation always wins. And that's just the actual visit, we're not even considering the cost of putting the station there in the first place.
So I keep going back to, why a space station? If we're going to spend all that extra money on turning hydrogen and oxygen into hot water, why put it toward a space station out in the middle of nowhere instead of, say, more time or more equipment on the surface of the body?
Also, IIRC, none of Elon's proposed mission architectures for going to Mars involve an orbital station. And, while SpaceX did get the Artemis lander contract, they weren't involved in the decision to have a Lunar Gateway.
I hear this somewhat often, and I find it a bit disingenuous since it's not like we're trying that hard to colonize Antarctica, we're mostly preserving it as well as we can, no? And the existing Antarctic bases aren't total hellholes or anything, AFAIK the larger ones are relatively normal spaces with power and normal food and heated water.
I do agree with the overall point though for sure.
The Reds want to preserve the environment and the Greens want to completely change it...
Read the book A City On Mars recently which had a lot of interesting concerns not widely discussed in the pro space colonization community : https://www.acityonmars.com/. Highly recommended.
I felt they had some very good points, though, and I don't see any progress on the major blockers to any sort of large scale extra-planetary colonization. I hadn't considered the issues with procreation discussed in the book, for example--that's kind of a huge issue if we want to have any sort of self-sustaining population outside of this earth!