Grindr President Defends Same-Sex Marriage Comments

In a Facebook post last week, Scott Chen, the president of the gay dating app Grindr, vowed to boycott a company he perceived as hostile toward same-sex marriage.

But it was a line earlier in the post that had some users of the app questioning his support of gay rights.

“Some people think that marriage is a holy union between a man and a woman, I think so too, but that’s your own business,” he wrote in Chinese.

The content of the post was first reported by Into, a publication owned by Grindr. Chen responded in the comments section, saying the article, which included a clumsy translation of the post automatically generated by Facebook, was “unbalanced and misleading.”

“The reason I said marriage is a holy matrimony between a man and a woman is based on my own personal experience,” he said. “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 also chided the publication for not asking him for comment before publishing its story. The article had not been updated with his comments more than eight hours later.

The editor of Into did not respond to messages seeking comment.

Chen’s original post was in response to the overwhelming defeat of a same-sex marriage referendum in Taiwan, where he was educated and has family. On the same day he posted it, Chen shared an Into article about the founder of HTC, the Chinese tech company, backing groups that opposed same-sex marriage.

Here is Chen’s full post, translated from Chinese:

Grindr did not respond to a message seeking comment.

As Chen’s comments caromed through social media, some of Grindr’s millions of users expressed disappointment that the president of the app held such a view.

And other publications latched on as well. An article by Out Magazine was headlined: “The President of Grindr Just Said He’s AGAINST Gay Marriage.”

In his comment on the Into article, Chen flatly claimed the opposite.

“I am a huge advocate for L.G.B.T.Q.+ rights since I was young,” he wrote. “I support gay marriage and I am proud that I can work for Grindr.”

On Facebook, Chen has at times posted in support of gay rights. He posted a photo in early November of Grindr’s presence at the National Taiwan University supporting the marriage referendum.

He also reposted an illustrated graphic in Chinese emphasizing the importance of teaching children how to respect people with other sexual orientations at school.

“A child who doesn’t learn about gender equality, sex education and gay education will grow up to be an ignorant person,” one of the illustrated panels read.

Chen studied at National Taiwan University for his undergraduate and master’s degrees, and he worked for Facebook and Instagram after earning a Ph.D. at the California Institute of Technology.

In January, Grindr was sold to Kunlun Group, a Chinese gaming company, and Chen was installed as chief technology officer. He became the president in August.