In short

A rally for domestic partnership rights is being held tonight at 5:30 in the Terry Shrunk Plaza, located at Southwest Third Avenue and Madison Street. The rally is being organized by Basic Rights Oregon, in response to a federal judge postponing a law that would allow domestic partnerships in Oregon.

Domestic partnership rights rally tonight

A rally for domestic partnership rights is being held tonight at 5:30 in the Terry Shrunk Plaza, located at Southwest Third Avenue and Madison Street.

The rally is being organized by Basic Rights Oregon, in response to a federal judge postponing a law that would allow domestic partnerships in Oregon.

Tash Shatz, equal rights director for Associated Students of Portland State University, said the law has gone through the legislative process and was supposed to take effect Jan. 1, but an out-of-state interest group intervened and lobbied to have the judge order the postponement last Dec. 28.

The legality of domestic partnerships will be reviewed Feb. 1, and Shatz said support from the rally beforehand will increase the likelihood of a favorable ruling for members of Oregon’s queer community.

“The student voice is particularly important because this is going to be an issue in their adulthoods if something isn’t done now,” he said. “Even though we’re young, this is our fight.”

Shatz will meet with students attending the rally at 4:45 p.m., near the information desk in the lobby of Smith Memorial Student Union.

A survey is being distributed to students by the Oregon Students Equal Rights Alliance to collect data about discrimination and harassment aimed at lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender university students. The survey will be available online Friday, Shatz said, but students can also receive the survey and information about the domestic partnership case by e-mailing him at [email protected].

-Robert Seitzinger

Chicken carnage on I-5, what the cluck?

EUGENE, Ore.–The chickens had no intention of crossing the road.

Instead, they came crashing off a trailer, in crates, leaving feathers and carcasses on a mile-long stretch of Interstate 5.

Oregon State Police said about 20 crates bound for Southern California fell near an exit at Eugene.

Each contained eight to 10 chickens.

Three drivers reported hitting crates.

Some of the fowl died inside, others on the highway or in the snow-filled ditches.

Troopers said they had no estimate of the number.

The driver of a pickup truck, Xin Li, 39, got a $242 ticket for a loose and shifting load that totaled about 160 crates, troopers said. They said straps on Li’s trailer broke.

As the living clucked, a state trooper contemplated the carnage.

“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Oregon State Police trooper Blain Hlebechuk told the Eugene Register-Guard.

Tony Kilmer has. The 15-year veteran of the Oregon Department of Transportation helped to clean up the mess and said it was nothing new.

“A lot of trucks running up and down I-5 dump their loads,” he said. “We’ve cleaned up chickens before. We’ve chased cows and sheep and horses off the road. It happens more often than you’d think.”

-Associated Press