Maryland legalized gay marriage within its borders on Thursday, February 23, 2012. It was the eighth state to do this. The governor, Martin O’Malley, is expected to sign the bill into law sometime soon.

This legislation came at a time of controversy in the movement for civil rights; the idea has its advocates and opponents. Both sides are working vigorously for their causes; either making gay marriage legal nationwide, or banning it entirely. The issue is expected to come before the Supreme court soon.

The Maryland State Senate voted 25 to 22 to legalize gay marriage. Governor Martin O’Malley, a Democrat, signed it, stating that he believes all children have a right to an equally protected home life under the law.

In order for the law to pass the House of Delegates, a clause was added allowing the issue to be put on the November ballot as a referendum. Since the Maryland public seems to be rather evenly split on the issue of gay marriage, this referendum should prove to be another contentious battle before the issue is settled.

However, the idea of gay marriage is not new in Maryland. The state began recognizing gay marriages performed in other states in 2010, when Attorney General Doug Gansler announced that while Maryland could not perform gay marriages, it would legally recognize those marriages that had been performed in other areas where it was legalized, including nearby Washington D.C.

Maryland, through this legislation, is becoming the seventh state to recognize gay marriage. Other states that allow gay marriage include Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York. The District of Columbia also recognizes gay marriage, and several states offer civil unions with rights similar to those of marriage. States that offer these special unions to gay and lesbian couples include Delaware, Hawaii, and Illinois.

Voters in Minnesota and North Carolina, however, will have the option in November of voting on laws to ban gay marriage in those states. New Jersey, which offers special civil unions, passed a law to approve gay marriage this month, but it was vetoed by the governor, who said the New Jersey voters should decide the issue in a referendum as well.

The issue of gay marriage first came to the forefront about twenty years ago, and even a decade ago, no US state or territory offered gay marriage as an option. In 1996, Congress passed DOMA, or the Defense of Marriage Act. DOMA denied federal recognition of gay marriages, and allowed states to decide the issue individually. Normally, each state is required to recognize the judicial proceedings, licenses, and other legal issues of other states, but DOMA denies gay marriage this right.

The law was passed out of fear that a lawsuit in Hawaii would force that state to allow gay marriage, and force other states and the federal government to recognize the institution as well. Thus, the campaign for gay rights has been a slow, state by state process, although the bevvy of lawsuits in several different states is beginning to force the Supreme Court to take a look at the matter.

Recent polls have shown that gay marriage has much more public support than it used to, but opponents are still adamant that it stay illegal. National Organization for Marriage President Brian Brown stated, “The reality is…voters have said they believe marriage is an institution between a man and a woman.”

Evan Wolfson, president of Freedom to Marry, takes a more optimistic approach to gay marriage’s chances, saying, “We could see a nationwide victory as soon as one to two years.”

Either way, the controversy does not look like it will end soon. Meanwhile, gay couples in Maryland will likely begin to get married, barring a lawsuit against the state’s new legislation, this summer.