by Jon Eric Evans
My name is Jon. In the photo above, I am the American guy on the
right looking a bit choked up. I think it was taken just after the
moment during our wedding when my husband Nedo stared into my eyes and
told me that he was going to love me forever.
Let me go back in time and tell the story of how Nedo and I met. In
April of 2005, I decided to take some time off from work and travel to
Europe with the intent of finding a place I could live while I finished a
college degree. I literally stumbled onto the Stradun in the charming
medieval, walled city of Dubrovnik, Croatia. I fell in love with the
country and its people, but one particular Croatian hunk ended up
stealing my heart. Having been a pretty jaded guy living in San
Francisco I had pretty much given up on my dream of finding a soul mate.
Even typing that I still flinch a little bit because I know it just
sounds so corny.
I remember sitting in a coffee bar on a warm September night near
Pile Gate, an entrance to Old Town, as it is called, and seeing Nedo for
the first time. He had come to the location because he had heard from
one of the workers that there was a handsome American whom he should
come check out. He was beautiful and I was enamored but we didn’t know
at that moment that our paths were meant to cross again. The next time I
saw him I was eating ice cream at another coffee shop. I was caught a
little off guard and couldn’t understand why he was starting at me so I
kind of hid a little bit behind an umbrella. We laugh about it today
because he couldn’t believe I would try to hide from him. He was
determined, as he proudly states today, to get to know me.
The next time I saw him was when I brought a friend from the U.S.
into the store where Nedo worked. I didn’t realize the “hot Croatian
guy” that I had telephoned my friend back home about worked at this
store. It felt like fate was dealing us our cards. I was so happy to
see him again. We got to talking and Nedo asked me for my cell phone
number; he called me almost immediately after we left the store wanting
to drop off a bracelet that he “fixed” for my friend. That, it turned
out, was a pretext to get to know me better.
Since the day we first met, Nedo and I have not been apart with the
exception of the seven months while we waited for him to come to the
United States on his student visa. When I eventually ran out of money
and I had to return home from Europe, I never expected that Nedo and I
would find a way to maintain our relationship back in the U.S. It
occurred to me while we were chatting online that if this man was going
to give up his beautiful country, his wonderful friends, and move away
from his family, how could I not welcome him with open arms in my
country? To this day the effects of that decision on him to leave his
family are deeply emotional and he can’t allow himself to communicate
with them regularly because it is easier to disassociate then deal with
the enormity of that decision. Every time he talks to his family he
ends up crying for the remainder of the night. He misses his nieces and
nephews terribly and it hurts him not to see them regularly. The fact
that he is separated from his mother is something he can’t even fully
grasp without his eyes swelling with tears. Due to his current legal
status he cannot risk leaving the country for fear his visa will not be
renewed, but this means he also must live with the knowledge that he may
never see his parents again. They are getting older and the more time
that goes by without him being able to visit is another form of torment
for us as a gay binational American family. My husband experiences this
pain often, and it causes me to resent my government for the pain our
families suffer in the name of DOMA.
Eventually, we settled into a domestic routine. Nedo went to school
full-time, but almost every day he cooked our meals and did laundry; he
even folded and ironed the sheets! He meticulously planned every holiday
and decorated at least three trees on Christmas. Nedo took care of me
as much as I took care of him, and he made our home and life together.
Nedo has become an important part of my family. He is “Uncle Nedo” to
my nieces, a brother to my sisters, and a cousin to my cousins. We
celebrate every Thanksgiving at the home of my born-again Christian
brother and his
fourth wife. Numerous members of our extended
family members support us in our cause for Marriage Equality,
recognizing that our fight to be together is not a gay or straight
issue, but an issue of our common humanity as a family. Virtually,
everyone who has come into our lives knows and supports us in our
struggle to stay together and cannot believe that there is a chance Nedo
might be taken away from all of us.
Nedo has given me everything and has taught me the true meaning of
partnership and unconditional love. He is the love of my life and he is a
source of inspiration to all in our life. It makes me tear up even
just thinking of how much love he has shown for me and my family. There
are ways that this man has supported me that do not lend themselves
easily to words. He is faithfully and religiously by my side. I feel
blessed to be able to share life, our friends and family together. What
we have in our lives together today is something we have both dreamed
of all of our lives. We would love to be able to think of our future
and how we want to have a home in California and a summer residence in
Croatia close to his family. We dream of owning our own business to
support ourselves but none of it can fully become a reality when living
your life in constant fear of not knowing what the future holds. We
would love more then anything to buy a house and know that it will
always be our home together. Such simple dreams often seem impossible
for us as a gay binational couple.
I remember the day in 2008 when the Supreme Court of California ruled
that gay couples could marry. It was the first time I realized that
Nedo and I could marry. At that moment I was ambivalent. I had been told
that Nedo may complicate his visa status if we were married because it
could be interpreted as an indication of intent to remain in the United
States. (I later realized that much of the concern around marriage and
visa status stems from a lack of understanding of these issues.)
Importantly, though, something in my mind changed that day. With
respect to my relationship to Nedo, to our love, I felt like every other
American. I felt worthy. I felt that we had the chance to feel equal.
Finally, I was in love with a wonderful man who I would actually want to
marry and now the most wonderful and surprising thing had happened: a
court ruling had made it all possible.
As everyone reading this knows by now, our right to marry ended up
being put to a vote and it was taken away by a slim majority of
Californians. It felt like a punch in gut. I was so upset that I lost a
lot of hope in my own country at that moment. I remember the opposing
side of Prop 8 using Obama’s statement about marriage and feeling let
down that the President didn’t aggressively speak out in opposition to
the Proposition. Nedo even met Nancy Pelosi at a book signing event in
San Francisco and brought up the fact that I could not sponsor him for a
green card because of DOMA. She said “I know; it’s a disgrace and we
need to change that.” Nice words, but that’s all they were. Over the
next few years we became increasingly frustrated when the response from
our elected officials essentially became, “what choice do we have but
wait for change?” We have started to realize that change is not
something you wait for; it’s something you make happen.
I get upset when I think about the taxes I have paid over the years
to my government only to be treated like a second-class citizen, while
other people, like my brother, who is on his fourth marriage, get
unlimited chances to pursue their happiness. As an American citizen I
cannot stand by and allow my love for Nedo to be treated as though it is
less valuable than my brother’s marriages.
A dream came true for us last August, when a birthday trip to New
York for Nedo ended up being so much more than just a visit to the
Statue of Liberty! On July 24th, New York State’s marriage equality law
went into effect, so about a week before our trip I asked Nedo if after
six years together was he would marry me while we were in New York. Nedo
and I had concerns about jeopardizing his visa status; however, we both
decided our commitment was worth the risk especially since his visa
expires in February 2013. We arranged for Reverend Annie Lawrence to
conduct our ceremony and hired photographer Stephen Rosen to take
pictures of our Bow Bridge wedding in Central Park. Its hard to put into
words the feelings and emotions we both felt that day while saying our
vows. What we have is special and the experience of being able to
legally commit ourselves in a ceremony like all other loving couples was
a once in a lifetime, joyful experience.
Nedo and I live in San Francisco today and we are very blessed. We
have been through a lot together and have always been taken care of. We
have a certain faith in our respective higher powers that our love is
special and that we will be taken care of.
Each year we participate in the Diversity Visa Green Card Lottery and
this last year was especially bitter for us as we are running out of
time on Nedo’s visa. The Green Card Lottery is our final hope. Nedo is
tired of being in school and cannot continue to study as his heart is
not in it. He also misses his family terribly and wants to see them
badly. Because his visa will be up in February of 2013 we are running
out of options.
We can no longer put off conversations about what will happen to us
next year. If Nedo stays after his visa ends, how will we manage without
being able to maintain lawful status? He will be stuck and unable to
see his family in Europe, and we will be forced to live in fear that he
will be deported. If we find no other solution, he will be forced to
leave the United States, bringing our relationship to an end. We have
talked about long distance relationships and do not believe it is fair
for either of us to put one another through that. But we can’t imagine
being torn apart. Will we stay and fight or will our love and lives be
broken apart? This is devastating for us to think about this but this
is our reality. Every day we inch closer to the expiration of his
student visa without a solution. Living with this uncertainty and fear
is like an ache in your heart that never goes away.
It’s been hard for me to write this story. I have spent all of my
life in sales and promote things that have “value propositions” and am
always discovering the needs of others and making recommendations. I am
writing this story because I need help keeping the man I love with all
my heart in this country.
Nedo has family and friends in Croatia. What he doesn’t have there is
the life we have built together in the United States with our friends
and family. We have worked very hard to put together an amazing home and
a life for us as a couple. I want to take care of him and provide for
him for the remainder of his life. I want for him to be legally
recognized as my husband in the United States. I want for us to be able
to go home to Croatia together and see his face when he hugs his mother.
I want to see his mother for the first time with her knowing that I am
Nedo’s husband. I want us to have the same rights and the same joys in
life that every heterosexual couple takes for granted.
We will fight to have all of that. Getting married in 2011 was the
first step in that direction. Now we will fight for our marriage. We
will not wait for change to happen. That is why we have joined The DOMA
Project. We encourage other couples to fight for their love, to tell
their stories and to hold our government accountable for DOMA. Together
we can stop this law from tearing us apart, destroying our families and
our dreams, forcing us to live in exile or across the globe from those
we love most. We have the power to end this now.
Source:
Stop the Deportations: The DOMA Project
Photos: By Steven Rosen Photography
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