Scott Chen, the president of gay dating app, Grindr, has been slammed by the gay community for saying he agrees that ‘marriage is a holy matrimony between a man and woman.’
The father of two who has a wife made the remarks Monday in a now-deleted Facebook post.
Screenshot of the controversial post was shared by Grindr’s news vertical INTO.
The site reports that the California-based CTO had shared an article on Facebook about HTC president and CEO Cher Wang supporting anti-LGBTQ causes through two nonprofit organizations and her attempt to influence Taiwan’s same-sex marriage decision.
Responding to this, Chen shared his views including criticizing Wang for funding organizations against gay marriage. He also revealed that he would be boycotting any of her smartphones and accessories from her Taiwan-based company for a lifetime.
‘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, which was translated by an independent translator for 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,’ he added
He continued by taking a jab at HTC’s Wang: ‘Getting married is a personal thing, rich can’t donate to the real poor hungry war disaster that needs help? Why spend money to stop people in love from getting married? Is nothing important in life?’
‘Right, I won’t buy HTC Products for a lifetime, and I won’t donate any money to Taiwan’s Christian groups for a lifetime!’
INTO’s Editor-in-Chief Zach Stafford wrote on Twitter Thursday: ‘Today we at INTO have learned that the current president of Grindr believes that same-sex marriage is a ”holy matrimony between men and women.”’
‘We are reporting this as the media property owned by Grindr and will be updating this as the story develops,’ he wrote.
Chen later dismissed INTO’s article, calling it ‘unbalanced and misleading,’ in a comment directed to staff writer Matthew Rodriguez.
‘Matthew, I wish you asked my comments before you publish this. This article is unbalanced and misleading. It hurts my feelings and it also hurts INTO’s and Grindr’s reputation,’ Chen replied.
‘The reason I said marriage is a holy matrimony between a man and a woman is based on my own personal experience. I am a straight man married to a woman I love and I have two beautiful daughters I love from the marriage. This is how I feel about my marriage,’ he explained.
The father of two who later deleted the controversial post after his 60-year-old conservative aunt got involved in the ‘heated discussion’ added: ‘I am a huge advocate for LGBTQ+ rights since I was young. I support gay marriage and I am proud that I can work for Grindr,’ he concluded.
