Canada certainly came a long way since a court-appointed psychiatrist found an admitted homosexual “incurable” and recommended preventative detention, making him, in essence, a threat to society due to his orientation. Six weeks after that appeal was turned down by the Supreme Court of Canada, the Parliament passed a bill decriminalizing homosexual relations between consenting adults. That was the first step towards equality, that culminated in allowance of gays to marry.

On this day, June 28, in 2005, Canada’s House of Commons passed a bill legalizing same-sex marriage across the country. The current law on homosexual marriage, it was decided, was in violation of Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in being restricted to heterosexual couples.

The bill had an easy time in the Parliament since individual Canadian provinces had already recognized the right for gays to marry, in some cases actually supporting the suits. In Ontario, for example, a lawsuit brought by a gay couple affirmed the current Canadian law as unconstitutional, and their second suit to skip the delay in allowing their marriage was likewise accepted. With that, Ontario became the first jurisdiction in North America to recognize same-sex marriage