City Council Speaker Christine Quinn told reporters last night she’s sat through a number of presidential nomination speeches in her time, but for the first time was floored to hear a presidential candidate reference LGBT rights.

“Obviously personally i used to sit in these arenas and you hope that the word ‘gay’ might be said or that there would be some reference that you could piece together and know that you could piece together and know that was what the person running for president meant,” said Quinn, the first gay city council speaker and potential 2013 mayoral prospect. “And you’d sit there and wait for that moment and it usually be at the end and there would be a moment where you thought it was not going to happen. But those days are over.”

President Obama has said he supports same-sex marriage rights for gay couples and this year the Democratic platform for the first time includes a plank backing gay nuptials.

Members of the New York state delegation in Charlotte were taking more than just a little credit for that, considering the state is the largest to approve same-sex marriage, doing so just over a year ago in June 2011.

The marriage theme was one that Gov. Andrew Cuomo hit on in his speech before the New York delegation breakfast Thursday morning.

It is a shift for the party, whose candidates down the line in the last decade supported civil unions for gay couples, not marriage. But those views have changed after LGBT advocates and others pointed out the distinction created two separate classes of rights for gay and straight couples.

Quinn said it wasn’t just the president’s address, but the video presentations at the convention that supported same-sex marriage.

“For me personally, that was life changing,” she said.

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