A downstate judge has found five Champaign-area gay activists not guilty in the disruption of a state Senate committee meeting in May.
The Senate Executive Committee had been discussing the state’s gay-rights bill when the five women marched to the front of the chamber chanting, “No, no, we won’t go, until we have equality. We’re your daughters, we’re your sons, pass House Bill 101.”
All five had been charged with criminal trespass to state-supported in the May 9 demonstration. One was also charged separately for driving a teenager to Springfield from Champaign, but those charges were later dropped.
House Bill 101, which would add sexual orientation to the state’s Human Rights Act, passed the House 60-55 in March. It then advanced out of the Senate Rules Committee and was assigned to the Executive Committee, where it was put on hold.
The decision to table the bill prompted the demonstrators to act. They were swiftly escorted out of the chamber by state capitol police and arrested.
Last week’s not-guilty verdict was the end to a long ordeal, they said. “We’re very relieved,” said Kimberly Kranich, one of the women arrested. “It’s a lot of stress from when you’re first arrested to when you go to trial.”
Kranich said she thinks the group was “over-charged” in the incident. “Personally I feel they were trying to intimidate us” with the charges, she said.
The verdict came after a one-day bench trial in Springfield Wednesday, Aug. 29.
According to Kranich, prosecutors had to prove that the demonstrators had disobeyed police orders to leave the meeting.
She said video taken by her group and by the police failed to prove that had happened.
If convicted, the women would have faced a maximum penalty of 364 days in jail and a $2,500 fine. While they avoided the fine, they do have legal bills to pay, and Kranich said members of the community have sent them donations to help cover expenses.
All of the defendants are members of the 85% Coalition, a Champaign-Urbana organization that draws its name from a University of Illinois poll that found that 85% of Illinois residents support basic rights for gays.
Kranich vowed that the group will continue its direct-action campaign in Springfield until all of House Bill 101’s protections are passed. She said the group is not satisfied by Gov. Ryan’s move to add parts of the bill to the state motorcycle rights bill.