Cuba’s new constitution opens a path to gay and lesbian marriage, according to government officials. Gay rights have come a long way in the island nation. Fidel Castro once persecuted homosexuals by placing them in correctional labor camps where many even were worked to death.

It wasn’t until Maria Castro, the daughter of former President Raul Castro, that gays began being accepted into mainstream society. Castro even led the parade.

The new constitution will replace Cuba’s 1976 Soviet-era Magna Carta, and it includes a sentence about marriage that describes marriage between two individuals.