In a mostly somber State of the State Address on Wednesday, focused predominately on the fiscal and economic challenges confronting his state, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy received the loudest and most sustained applause for referencing Connecticut’s “legacy of acceptance, compassion and fairness.”

But not everyone applauded. While Democrats rose to their feet and kept applauding, Republicans, at least most of them, offered up a few brief claps and then sat silently. Malloy noticed.

“Every Democrat stood up and no Republicans stood up,” Malloy told me during a phone interview after the address. “So that was a little disturbing. But I think that is the environment that has been created in our most recent presidential election. So I’m glad I did it.”

In this instance, Malloy’s “compassion and fairness” was interpreted as referencing what have become politically touchy subjects, such as how to deal with immigrants who came here outside the legal path but have otherwise proved law-abiding citizens. And whether to accept refugees from the Syrian civil war.

Republican Donald Trump, who will soon become our president, built his campaign on a pledge to crack down on and expel illegal immigrants, while barring, or at least making it very difficult, for refugees from countries touched by terrorism to enter the United States.

Malloy made it a point in his address to set Connecticut apart from that approach.

“Regardless of whether your family settled in Connecticut 300 years ago or three days ago, you are welcome here. As the people of Connecticut navigate a changing national landscape, we will continue to ensure that every state resident is treated with dignity and respect. That will not change. Not now. Not ever,” thundered the Democratic governor.

The comments were similar to those Malloy voiced last May in accepting the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award at the JFK Library in Boston.

“When people will rise up to defame a religious group or a gender group or women, then Americans of good principle and strong heart need to say, ‘Not in my land, not in any land,’” Malloy said then.

Malloy received the award after getting national attention in November 2015 when, after Indiana Gov. Mike Pence blocked a Syrian family from taking refuge in that state, Malloy welcomed the couple and their 5-year-old son to Connecticut.

Pence will soon be vice president. A federal appeals court later ruled that his move to block the distribution of federal funds to resettle Syrian refugees violated federal laws prohibiting discrimination based on nationality.

Malloy says he has encountered many people worried about a Trump-Pence America. In his address to Connecticut, he sought to reassure them, he said.

“Everywhere I’ve gone in the state for the last six months there is anxiety among gays, lesbians, transgender, Hispanic, black, immigrants, Muslims, and other religious minority folks … and women. I think well over 50 percent of our society is feeling challenged by the political rhetoric. So I thought it was appropriate to say that we have a long history in Connecticut, and we’re not going to change that history,” Malloy told me.

Last September, the U.S. State Department reported that in the past year New England had welcomed 650 Syrian refugees and Connecticut led the way, welcoming 334 adults and children. Connecticut’s people should be proud of that record.

I have to wonder if Pence, outspoken about his Christian faith, considered the irony as he viewed Nativity scenes on his Christmas cards, depicting a Middle Eastern couple desperate to find a place of refuge. In Connecticut, there was room at the inn.

Paul Choiniere is the editorial page editor.