Jared Polis has become the first openly gay governor in the US to marry in office.
The Colorado governor and Marlon Reis, his partner of 18 years, hosted an intimate traditional-styled Jewish wedding surrounded by close friends, family and their two children, according to a news release this week.
The wedding, held on the University of Colorado’s Boulder campus, held significant meaning as it marked the 18th anniversary of their first date.
The Colorado governor is the first publicly LGBTQ official to get married while in office, according to the LGBTQ Victory Fund. A decade before Polis was elected governor of Colorado, he made history as the first parent in a same-sex relationship elected to the United States House of Representatives.
“The greatest lesson we have learned over the past 18 months is that life as we know it can change in an instant. We are thankful for the health and wellbeing of our family and friends, and the opportunity to celebrate our life together as a married couple,” Polis and Reis said in a joint statement.
When Polis took office in 2018, it had been just three years since the United States supreme court made same-sex marriage legal across the country.
“As I was growing up, marriage was not even in the realm of possibility,” Reis, 40, said. “And in fact, the reality was that there was a lot of misinformation out there about what could potentially happen if you came out – what opportunities would you lose, how it would negatively impact you. So for a long time, the idea of getting married, we didn’t talk about it.”
Reis told the Colorado Sun that Polis proposed last winter while the couple battled Covid-19 in their Boulder home. Right before Reis was hospitalized, Polis got down on one knee.
