• Right to make health care decision for partner
• Right to visit partner in hospital
• Right to sue for wrongful death
• Right to consent or refuse autopsy of partner’s body
• Right to be buried in cemetery plot with partner
• Right to make funeral arrangements for partner
• Right to inherit deceased partner’s estate
• Right to visit in long-term care facility
• Automatic “authorized driver” on partner’s car rental
• Right to coverage on partner’s insurance plan
• Protection of home in the case of partner’s bankruptcy
• Private conversations are protected in court
• Right to access partner’s death certificate
• Right to personal effects from deceased partner’s body

These are just a few of the rights that couples will get when the Oregon Domestic Partnership bill is enacted. The bill was supposed to take effect at the beginning of 2008 – but a small close-minded special interest group pushed for and received a delay in this actually occurring.

Today at 5:30 pm men and women, gay and straight, married and single, atheists and Christians, old and young; will gather in Terry Schrunk Plaza (SW 3rd and Madison) for the Rally to Defend Equality in Portland ^[1].

Even if you don’t think that this personally affects you – it’s important to stand up for what’s right.