An opinion by Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler that prods state agencies to recognize gay marriages performed elsewhere has come under attack by several lawmakers.

Gansler, a Democrat, concluded that Maryland's highest court is likely to decide in favor of recognizing such marriages.

The Court of Appeals “will likely apply the principle that a marriage is valid in the place of celebration is valid in Maryland,” Gansler said in a 45-page opinion released Wednesday.

“The opinion reaches this conclusion in light of the evolving state policy, reflected in anti-discrimination laws, domestic partner laws and other legislation, that respects and supports committed intimate same-sex relationships,” he added.

Proponents of marriage equality hailed the decision, which state agencies are expected to follow.

“As this important attorney general's opinion makes clear, Maryland will continue to follow the tradition and common-sense practice of honoring out-of-state marriages, without a 'gay exception',” Evan Wolfson, executive director of Freedom to Marry, a group that supports marriage equality laws, said.

A day after its release, however, several lawmakers said they would fight the ruling, and one Democratic lawmaker hit the ceiling.

“I am still stunned that he would issue such an amorphous, confusing opinion,” Delegate Emmett C. Burns Jr. told the Washington Post.

“It's a bucket of warm spit,” Burns, who is also a Baltimore County Baptist minister, added.

Delegate Don H. Dwyer Jr, an Anne Arundel County Republican, announced he would file impeachment charges against Gansler.

“He has betrayed the trust of the citizens of the state of Maryland by usurping the authority of the General Assembly and he's [going to] be held accountable for that,” Dwyer told local ABC affiliate News Channel 8.

Both lawmakers supported a bill that would have prohibited the state from recognizing legal gay marriages performed in other states which died in a key House committee earlier in the month.

A gay marriage law in the District of Columbia, which cuts into Maryland's western border, is expected to take effect next week.