Those are two small cities at the northern tip of California’s Central Valley. And they’re deeply conservative strongholds. Like most of their Central Valley neighbors to the south, voters in Redding and Chico strongly favored Proposition 8 in 2008. Seventy percent of voters in Shasta County, which includes Redding, voted for Prop. 8. In Butte County, where Chico is located, 56.7 percent of voters favored the measure.
And that’s why the San Francisco chorus was there.
San Francisco Chronicle columnist CW Nevius explains:
Make no mistake, this isn’t a tour. It’s a groundbreaking political action. In the upcoming months, they’ll visit Bakersfield, Fresno, and Tracy, all strongholds for Prop. 8, the measure that banned same-sex marriage. They hope their music will help personalize the fight for gays to marry.
It is more than a small gamble. They could face protests, fights or even worse - complete indifference.
But none of those things happened on the first two stops on what the chorus calls its Freedom Tour. Instead the chorus met its full tour attendance goals during the first two stops, Chico Enterprise Record reports: