 Before passage of the "Civil Marriage Protection Act", the state recognized same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions following the 2010 release of a legal opinion from Attorney General Doug Gansler in his nine-month analysis of comity laws.In 2012, the Maryland Court of Appeals maintained Gansler's analysis and issued a unanimous decision in "Port v. Cowan" finding that a same-sex marriage performed out-of-state must be considered equal and valid under state law, despite its earlier decision in "Conaway v. Deane" (2007) in which the court upheld the statutory ban on same-sex marriage as constitutional.Maryland holds a unique place in the history of same-sex marriage in the United States.