(MCT) — SAN FRANCISCO — In San Francisco, George Roehm got the chills and reached for his smartphone to text an out-of-state friend. In Long Beach, Stan Mallard thought about how far this struggling country has come — and the great distance still ahead to achieve anything like progress.

And dance instructor Chaz Knight, an urban dweller if ever there was one, found himself wondering Monday how President Barack Obama’s words would sound to a teenage kid in the rural South. How freeing it would be, he figured, to hear the president declare that this country’s work would not be done “until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law.”