Before passage of the Civil Marriage Protection Act, the state had only recognized same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions, following analysis of state law—conducted by Attorney General Doug Gansler—that released in 2010. In 2012, the Court of Appeals ruled unanimously in Port v. Cowan, that a same-sex marriage performed out-of-state must be considered equally valid under the law, despite an earlier ruling in 2007 that the statute ban on performing same-sex marriages in Maryland was not a violation of the state constitution.