Colorado Gov. Jared Pollis, nation’s first openly gay governor, is engaged to longtime partner Marlon Reis

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and his longtime partner Marlon Reis are engaged.

The 45-year-old Democrat proposed to his partner of 17 years in December, during a delicate time for the couple and their two kids.

Reis, who had been battling the deadly coronavirus for about a week, was getting ready to go to the hospital after his oxygen saturation levels had dropped to a concerning level, he told The Colorado Sun on Wednesday.

“I was getting my things ready. My daughter was crying in the corner — she didn’t want me to go,” the 39-year-old animal rights activist said.

“My son was asking me a lot of technical questions: ‘When are you coming back? Do they know exactly what’s wrong?’ It was a very tense moment,” he added.

As Polis assured him that everything was going to be fine, he got down on one knee and asked Reis to marry him.

“It was the absolute perfect time,” Reis recalled. “I said to him, ‘I couldn’t breathe before. Now I really can’t breathe.’”

In this Jan. 8, 2019, file photo, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, left, waves to the crowd, accompanied by his partner, Marlon Reis, after Polis took the oath of office during his inauguration ceremony in Denver. A newspaper in Colorado said Thursday, March 4, that Polis proposed to his longtime partner and First Gentleman Marlon Reis in December after 17 years together. (David Zalubowski/)

The couple’s 6-year-old daughter was excited about her potential role as her dads’ flower girl.

Their 9-year-old son, however, was far less enthusiastic. Reis said that, “in his typical fashion,” he told his parents that he didn’t care for their engagement ring. The ring is inscribed with a passage from Isaiah 11:6 and it’s “very plain, perfectly in keeping with both our personalities,” Reis said.

According to The Sun, the couple hadn’t shared the news about their Dec. 6 engagement with the public until this week.

Although not yet officially married, Reis is referred to in Colorado as the state’s “first gentleman.”

“First Gentleman Marlon Reis is back home from the hospital,” Polis tweeted on Dec. 8. “Marlon and I are so thankful for the doctors, nurses, and staff who took care of him while he was there.”

Polis, Colorado’s 43rd governor, made history in January 2019 when he was sworn in as the nation’s first openly gay governor. (In 2016 the openly bisexual governor of Oregon, Kate Brown, became the first out-and-proud member of the LGBTQ community elected as governor in the U.S.)

In 2011, when announcing the birth of the couple’s first son, Caspian Julius, then-Congressman Polis became the first openly gay parent in Congress.