The fallout over Grindr’s president saying marriage is between a man and a woman continues…
It all started late last month when Scott Chen, the straight president of the company that owns gay hookup app, wrote on Facebook:
Some people think the marriage is a holy matrimony between a man and a woman. And I think so too. But that’s your own business. Some people think the purpose of the marriage is to have a child carries your DNA. But again, that’s your own business.
Chen was commenting on news that HTC, the Taiwan-based smartphone manufacturer, supports antigay causes through two non-profit organizations.
Ironically, his remarks were first reported on by Grindr’s own in-house publication, Into More.
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Related: Grindr’s straight president says marriage is between a man and a woman
Clearly, this caused quite a stir within the organization because Grindr’s head of communications just announced he’s outta there.
Landon Rafe Zumwalt is, er, was in charge of overseeing all of the company’s messaging until he found himself in an impossible position.
“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 writes in a letter published by Medium on Friday.
“While that resulted in my time at Grindr being cut short, I have absolutely no regrets. And neither should you.”
Chen later tried to walking back his antigay remarks, reassuring everyone that he does, in fact, support marriage equality:
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. Different people have their different feelings about their marriages. You can’t deny my feelings about my marriage.
He added the he’s a “huge advocate for LGBTQ+ rights” and that he’s “proud that I can work for Grindr.”
The New York Times reports Chen previously posted social media messages promoting LGBTQ rights in China and Taiwan.
But this wasn’t enough to keep Zumwalt around.
In his Dear John letter, he writes: “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.”
In a statement to PinkNews, a Grindr spokesperson says: “As Landen shared in his Medium post, he has resigned from his position at Grindr. We wish him the best in his future endeavors and appreciate his contributions to the company and the Grindr community.”
Related: Pride Media owner with long history of funding anti-gay politicians promises he won’t do it anymore
uberhund
Fire him. The man’s an idiot – fair enough he holds views his target market isn’t going to like, I’m sure lots of people do. But he doesn’t have the sense to keep his mouth shut. It’s like a condom manufacturer saying he’s against contraception – he’s a stupid liability.
QueerTruth
No dude. That’s not gonna happen.
Delete Grindr or you and millions of gay/bi men will continue to feed this Chinese millionaire more money.
That’s the solution.
Chrisk
I believe the best relationships are for white people only. For me It’s holy and what God wants after all.
Woops! What I meant was for me personally the best relationships are between white people. If you like Asians though then what you do is your own business and you should have the right to do that too.
Donston
That’s a pretty fair analogy.
doug105
This comment system is one of the worst with no way to call out hate trolls or spam, time to move to a better one like disqus or just about anything else.
misterjack
Agreed. WAY too much Spam. And speaking of HOT websites, click on mine to find the HOTTEST gay porn on the net.
Vince
Queerty doesn’t have any monitoring anymore. They tried 6 months ago and for some reason dropped the idea. Now it’s just a computer screening system of don’t say words that aren’t PC. That just random stuff here and there.
Yes disqus is much better.
iamru2
Who gets to decide what is hate and who is a troll? Spam is an easy one we can all agree on but the other 2 are pretty open.
iamru2
Zzzzzz!
doug105
It would just be flagged for staff to decided and possible personal block of that commenter.
Lacuevaman
…”no fems, no asians”…..
Bob LaBlah
If the pay and benefits were all that great Mr. Zumwalt would have figured out a way to ignore the comments and stay at Grindr. Since he decided to pack up and leave I’m left to think that the job wasn’t worth the hassle and he saw his opportunity to bail out of it. It may have seemed like a dream job to a few of us but there are those amongst us who see a low paying thankless job that Mr. Zumwalt did himself a favor by leaving it.
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
Queerty has very inappropriate monitoring for a Gay site…..Try inserting (pun intended) c*ck in a post…