A Grindr executive on Friday announced
that he was leaving the company following comments by its president
that he does not support same-sex marriage.
Scott Chen, the president and former
CTO of the hook-up app for gay and bisexual men, reportedly described
marriage as a “holy matrimony between a man and a woman” in a
now-deleted Facebook post.
INTO, an LGBT site owned by
Grindr, reported that Chen made the remark in a November 26 post.
“There are people who believe that
marriage is a holy matrimony between a man and a woman. I agree but
that’s none of our business,” Chen wrote in Chinese, according to
INTO. “There are also people who believe that the purpose
of marriage is to create children that carry their DNA. That’s also
none of our business. There are people that are simply different from
you, who desperately want to get married. They have their own
reasons.”
Chen made his comments in the course of
sharing an INTO article about Cher Wang, the president and CEO
of Taiwan-based HTC, and her support for groups vying to influence
Taiwan voters to reject a recent referendum on marriage equality.
(Related: Taiwan
voters reject same-sex marriage.)
“I'll never buy HTC products ever
again, and I'll never donate a cent to any Christian groups in
Taiwan!” Chen also wrote.
Chen claimed that INTO had
incorrectly translated his comments and explained that they were
based on his own personal experience as a heterosexual man. “This
is how I feel about my marriage,” Chen wrote. “Different people
have their different feelings about their marriages. You can't deny
my feelings about my marriage. … I support gay marriage.”
In a Medium post, Landon Rafe Zumwalt,
head of communications at Grindr, announced that he was stepping
down.
“As an out and proud gay man madly in
love with a man I don’t deserve, I refused to compromise my own
values or professional integrity to defend a statement that goes
against everything I am and everything I believe,” Zumwalt wrote.
“While that resulted in my time at Grindr being cut short, I have
absolutely no regrets. And neither should you.”
“For those who remain, those who will
continue to fight for our community from within, know I will be
cheering you on from the sidelines. Persist. Make your voices heard.
And never compromise who you are for someone else,” he
added.
Chen moved into the role of CTO after
China-based tech firm Kunlun Group acquired Grindr in 2017.