'I'm not sitting at the back of the bus anymore"

I phoned my daughter tonight to celebrate with her about the gay marriage vote. She said "Mom, I feel like I'm not sitting at the back of the bus anymore."
Exactly. Yes, exactly.
Not that gay marriage was actually banned anymore in eight provinces anyway, because of the court cases.
But its one thing for a judge to declare that gay marriage is constitutional, and its another thing entirely for the elected leadership of the country to demonstrate in such a concrete way their support for gay rights, their recognition that gay people are fully Canadian.
The Globe story, Same-sex marriage bill passes says:

It was [Pierre Trudeau] the late Liberal prime minister who decriminalized homosexuality in 1969, and whose Charter of Rights and Freedoms became the legal cudgel that smashed the traditional definition of marriage. Barely two years ago the Liberal government was still fighting same-sex couples in courts across the land. It changed its tune amid an onslaught of legal verdicts in eight provinces that found traditional marriage laws violated the charter's guarantee of equality for all Canadians. "(This) is about the Charter of Rights," Prime Minister Paul Martin said earlier Tuesday. "We are a nation of minorities. And in a nation of minorities, it is important that you don't cherry-pick rights. A right is a right and that is what this vote tonight is all about.