MR. KOJO NNAMDIFrom WAMU 88.5 at American University in Washington, welcome to "The Kojo Nnamdi Show," connecting your neighborhood with the world. Later in the broadcast, New York passes gay marriage. We revisit in the issue in the state of Maryland. But first, inspired by Egypt's example, Bahrain's Shia majority began a protest movement in February calling for greater rights and freedoms from minority Sunni rulers.

MR. KOJO NNAMDIThe burgeoning movement came to an abrupt end when the ruling family brought in thousands of troops from Saudi Arabia and the UAE to quell the demonstrations. A month after the end of martial law, protestors are on trial with some already sentenced to life. Reports of human rights abuses abound and a new round of talks between the government and opposition leaders has been set. We'll learn about the small Gulf country's complicated politics and strategic importance to the U.S.

MR. KOJO NNAMDIJoining us in studio is Ronald Neumann. He is the president of the American Academy of Diplomacy. He served as U.S. Ambassador to Bahrain from 2001 to 2004. Ambassador Neumann, thank you for joining us.

MR. RONALD NEUMANNThank you for having me.

NNAMDIAkbar Ahmed is the Ibn Khaldun chair of Islamic Studies at American University. He is also a distinguished visiting affiliate at the U.S. Naval Academy a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Akbar Ahmed, thank you for joining us.

MR. AKBAR AHMEDThank you, Kojo.

NNAMDIJoining us by phone from Doha Qatar is Alex Delmar-Morgan. He's a reporter with The Wall Street Journal who has spent three years covering the Middle East. Alex has been reporting on Bahrain for some six months now. Alex Delmar-Morgan, thank you for joining us.

MR. ALEX DELMAR-MORGANHi, good to be on the show, thanks.

NNAMDIRonald Neumann, allow me to start with you. Some, if not most people listening, may not be familiar the kingdom of Bahrain so first things first. Where is Bahrain and if I were to travel there, what would I see?

NEUMANNBahrain is a small island in the Persian Gulf about halfway up, who was claimed by Iran up until 1971, 1970 when they think they reduced the claim. It is a very small place, but it has been a very progressive spot in the Persian Gulf, who was the first of our free trade agreements there because its economy's comparatively modern.

NEUMANNIt had a great deal of trouble in the late '70s, later after the Iranian Revolution, when the current ruler, now King Hamad, came to power (unintelligible) he had a referendum. They began to have an elected parliament and a number of other reforms. But in the view of many, these reforms also stopped short of being full representation.

NEUMANNI think probably the most important to say that it is a very island, as you said, with complex politics, which are divided very strongly between the Sunni and Shia communities, each with their own splits and differentiations inside them, but it is not just regime population kind of division. Maybe that's enough for your poor listeners.

NNAMDIWell, I understand that Bahrain is a popular vacation spot for a lot of Westerners visiting the Middle East. In peaceful times, what's the country like?

NEUMANNVery pleasant. Bahrain has been a trading center for probably 2,000 years. You can trace in the lines of export trade between Mesopotamia and China. It is a country, perhaps because of this more cosmopolitan outlook, where you will find, say, comparison to some of the more conversation states in the Gulf.

NEUMANNWomen drive in Bahrain. Bahrainis tend to socialize as couples, not just men and women in separate groups. It's got a large foreign community and it's attached by a causeway to Saudi Arabia and it's a vacation, weekend spot for Saudis, because for one thing, they can buy liquor in Bahrain, which they can't buy in Saudi Arabia.

NNAMDIProfessor Ahmed, in order to understand the place, it's important to know its history. How has Bahrain changed over the last -- well, not only over the last 200 years or so, but frankly over the last 40 years or so?

AHMEDKojo, to understand Bahrain, we need to understand that it is smack bang on the fault line, the critical fault line between Persian-Shia-Islam and Arab-Sunni-Islam. And at one stage, it was part of the Persian Empire. Its ruling family, al-Khalifah, come from the heartland of the Saudi peninsula.

AHMEDThe Khalifah family and, in fact, that is the king, the prime minister who's been there for 40 years and half the cabinet. So the pulls between these two huge cultural zones has always been very acute. In itself, Bahrain is a tiny island, just over a million in population. It's of note that about 300,000 non-Bahrainis also live there and by and large, live peacefully.

AHMEDThe balance between the Shia part of the population, which is about 60 percent and the non-Shia, that is the Sunni population, is always that very difficult balance because the ruling family is, of course, Sunni, and they're then pulled by these two great forces around them, the Persian world and the Arab world.

NEUMANNAlex Delmar-Morgan, when did you start covering Bahrain and how easy or how difficult is it for journalists to gain entry into Bahrain?

DELMAR-MORGANWell, I started covering Bahrain at the start of the year. I was there for two weeks during the big crackdown on protestors in March. And, well, back in March, it was reasonably easy to get in, but since that big crackdown, they've really, really tightened up and almost to the effect where no journalists have really been allowed in at all in the last three to four months.

DELMAR-MORGANI mean, do you remember before any of this unrest kicked off, I mean, journalists were really free to come and go as they please and to -- into Bahrain. They have just started easing restrictions. I have, for one, have been approved a visa and I hope go next week again. But they've been very hesitant about letting journalists in for the last three or four months.

NNAMDIIf you'd like to join this conversation, you can call us 800-433-8850. Have you been to Bahrain or what's the nature of your interest in Bahrain? What do you think about the relationship between the U.S. and Bahrain? How do you feel about how the U.S. has responded to crackdowns in Bahrain? 800-433-8850. You can go to our website, kojoshow.org, ask a question or make a comment there. Send us a tweet at kojoshow or e-mail to kojo@wamu.org.

NNAMDIAlex, you were detained by soldiers for several hours while trying to cover protests in Pearl Square in mid-March. What sparked those protests you were covering and what were people rallying for?

DELMAR-MORGANThey're really just rallying for -- calls for greater political freedom. I mean, in fact, what sparked it was what happened in Libya and Tunisia where the presidents of both those countries were forced to step down because of protestors, as we know. So it started the Arab Spring movement. But I mean, the protestors in Bahrain, they really just wanted political reform. The more hard liners in the opposition wanted the downfall of the monarchy, including the prime minister and the king.

DELMAR-MORGANWhat the opposition wanted was a proper constitutional monarchy. I mean, they still do want that with a fully elected parliament. Bahrain does have a lower house elected parliament, but it doesn't have a huge amount of power. But the core demands of a constitutional monarchy and a fully elected parliament, that didn't sit well with the Sunni ruling family in Bahrain because they would've effectively -- they were worried that this would lead to a Shia prime minister, which is just something they just simply could not accept with their Sunni ties to Saudi Arabia, the other regional superpower.

NNAMDIAkbar Ahmed, is there a way of discerning how much support there is for the royal family among the citizens of Bahrain?

AHMEDKojo, this is an important question because we tend to look at the -- what's happening in the Arab world, the Arab revolution, the Arab Spring and see it as a monolith. We see populations rising against their rulers, populations largely young, using the social media, Twitter, Facebook and so on and really talking about reform and human rights and which -- and the time has come to have all these great universal values in the Arab world.

AHMEDBut I would categorize what is happening in three broad distinctions. One, I would say there are the dictators like Gaddafi and Assad, so the populations rising against them, again, complicated by these dictators and their backing from certain tribal sections of their own society. The second category, I would say, would be the kings and dynasty. So the king of Saudi Arabia, or the ruling family of Bahrain as good examples. And here it gets a bit complicated because these ruling families have traditionally been more, let's say, "benevolent" than the tyrants in the first category.

AHMEDAnd the third category, again interesting, are kings with sacred lineages like the king of Morocco or the king of Jordan, who claim descent from the holy prophet of Islam. So this makes it even more complicated because they both temporal authority and sacred authority fused in their throne. And therefore we need to look at what's happening in the Arab world with these distinctions in mind and not see them as a monolith.

NEUMANNYes, could I...

NNAMDIYes, I was about to go to you next, Ronald Neumann.

NEUMANNPardon me for jumping in there, but, of course, I think one can build on Professor Ahmed's comments. The second category, as he told it, kings. But I think it's important that people understand that in Bahrain you have a fairly large Sunni community, which also came out in rather large numbers demonstrating in favor of the monarchy.

NEUMANNThis was not particularly covered in the U.S. media, which I think is a bit of debility for U.S. citizens trying to figure out this complication. I believe that the Shia certainly have a majority, but a key piece of Bahrain is that you have two communities, Sunni and Shia, which are deeply divided between them, now much more so after the violence, enormous suspicions.

NEUMANNSo that, I think, the whole proposition of seeing it as a demand of people for parliamentary democracy is itself skewed. You have that demand, but in a place where people are divided by communities. One man, one vote rule means the domination of one group over another. Now, you have the domination of a minority. To reverse it and have the domination of a majority gives you neither a perfect liberal democracy nor a very stable system, much more complicated to come to resolution and the -- I think the very necessary liberalization, when you have those deep communal splits.

NNAMDIAlex Delmar-Morgan, is this something that you have been encountering in your own attempts to cover what is going on in Bahrain, that it might be a little more complicated than we thought, that there is some support among the Sunni minority for the royal family and that the notion that there could be a domination, if you will, a dictatorship of the majority, as one of the things that drives them?

DELMAR-MORGANIt's certainly true to say that there is support for the monarchy around the population is roughly divided into sort of, yes, 60 percent Shia and 40 percent Sunnis and among the Sunnis the government is quite popular. And among the Shia, it's probably not very popular.

DELMAR-MORGANWhen I was there, I mean, I didn't really see or hear of any pro-government rallies. I believe that there was one but the anti-government rallies were certainly bigger. But I mean, I think there were some and I think that one of the main complaints that the Shia have in Bahrain is that they have, you know, very little access to top government jobs, including all the ministries, the police and the security forces and the army. The Shias have long complained that the Sunnis get better houses and jobs and they basically earn more money. So, I mean, I think it is true to say that there is support the government, but it's hard to say how much support there is, especially, you know, during these kind of times.

NNAMDIObviously, we're dealing with a fairly complicated situation. We're going to take a short break. We'll come back and continue our conversation about Bahrain. Taking your calls at 800-433-8850. If you have already called, stay on the line. We'll try to get to your call as quickly as possible. You can also join the conversation at our website, kojoshow.org. Send us a tweet @kojoshow or e-mail to kojo@wamu.org. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.

NNAMDIWelcome back to our conversation on Bahrain. We're talking with Akbar Ahmed. He is the Ibn Khaldun chair of Islamic Studies at American University, also a distinguished visiting affiliate of the U.S. Naval Academy and a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Joining us in studio also is Ronald Neumann, president of the American Academy of Diplomacy. He served as U.S. ambassador to Bahrain from 2001 to 2004, and Alex Delmar-Morgan joins us by phone from Doha, Qatar.

NNAMDIHe is a reporter with the Wall Street Journal who spent three years covering the Middle East. He's been reporting on Bahrain for the past six months or so. Akbar Ahmed, do we run the risk of oversimplifying this about the rift in Bahrain, talking about it only in terms of a Sunni-Shia divide?

AHMEDWe do, Kojo, because there is a great mood and momentum towards democracy and opening up these societies. There's no doubt about it. And I think we have to accept this inevitability of this trajectory. At the same time, we need to understand that even in these regimes, even for example in the Bahrain royal family, they are people, notably the crown prince, for example, who are already very much conscious of moving Bahrain and their society into the 21st century and are doing many things, all kinds of scholarships for the youth and so on, which I think are happy, all good things to come.

AHMEDNow, within this, you have the context of this larger tension between the Shia world and the Sunni world. And don't forget that Bahrain is actually called Bahrain, which means a meeting of two seas. It's a geographic expression. And to me, it's a meeting place of two oceans that's Sunni Islam and Shia Islam so all those tensions are bound to be played out on this tiny island. I'm hopeful in the sense that if there's enough good sense and common sense and understanding by the leaders in these countries, like Bahrain, that even this huge challenge in society will be overcome.

AHMEDIt is a moment in time, we are in the middle of a revolution, right across the Arab world. We don't know how revolutions turn out, but I'm hopeful that sooner rather than later these societies will join the rest of humanity in the 21st century.

NNAMDIRonald Neumann, Iran is a neighbor of Bahrain's and a majority Shia country as well. How has that reality influence the actions we've seen the government of Bahrain take?

NEUMANNIt produces huge paranoia, although I think you should take that in the context that even paranoids have real enemies. The Iranians claimed Bahrain until the British withdrawal from the Persian Gulf. And that has left a long memory. There was an Iranian-inspired coup attempt in the middle '80s, if I remember rightly...

AHMED1981.

NEUMANN...when there were weapons smuggled into the island. And there is a kind of a dual problem that for a long time, with Iraq being essentially closed under Saddam Hussein, a lot of Bahraini Shia could only go to Iran to study their religion if they were going to become clerics. So Bahrain has -- Iran has influence in the mind of the ruling family. But in the Sunnis, generally, there is also a fear of that Iranian influence and of Iran trying to bring back its history of coup and revolution, which is probably excessive to the reality, but not without some reality.

NEUMANNAnd, in fact, in the early part of this century, when they used to have demonstrations, the Shia would often carry pictures of Khomeini in the street. That's, you know, if everybody carried pictures, pick your foreign leader in Washington, it wouldn't induce you to believe in their natural patriotism. Now they've been very careful about that. In these demonstrations, they carry Bahraini flags. But that it's all -- it's to say there is a threat. There is a lot of suspicion, which may go beyond threat.

NNAMDIAlex Delmar-Morgan, did you find, covering events on the ground in Bahrain, that there was the notion that they were looking over their shoulders, that is both maybe on the one hand, the ruling party, the royal family and on the other hand, protestors themselves at Iran?

DELMAR-MORGANCertainly besides -- as Ambassador Neumann said, certainly on the side of the royal family has a deep-rooted suspicions sort of bordering on paranoia about Iran. And they -- I mean, many sort of commentators, analysts feel they've used the Iran factor as an excuse to divert attention away from the real troubles that are going on in Bahrain. You know, we've been told many times that they have evidence that Bahrain has been -- that Iran has been, you know, instrumental in orchestrating these big protests.

DELMAR-MORGANBut we've never actually seen any of this evidence. And certainly on the side of the protestors, and I spoke to quite a few, there was no real thing from them to say that they were really aligned to Iran at all. And I spoke to many and they -- it was almost the opposite, that they didn't really want Iran there at all. It was very much a rejection of anything that wasn't Bahraini. They didn't want any interference at all with their affairs.

NNAMDINow, Akbar Ahmed, Bahrain has plenty of friendly neighbors as well. What benefits does membership in the GCC, the Gulf Cooperation Council, bring Bahrain?

AHMEDMany benefits. It's a club. It's a club of the small emirates in the Gulf area, gives them a sense of security. Also, Kojo, I think it's important to point out the geopolitical significance of Bahrain to the United States of America.

NNAMDIGetting to that in a second, go ahead.

AHMEDYeah, the fleet, of course, the U.S. fleet is stationed there. It took over this huge naval base from the British when they left early in the '70s. It's important to point out that Bahrain has been, over time, ruled by various dynasties and empires, including the Ottomans and the Portuguese and the British. So, in that sense, the geopolitical significance of Bahrain, notwithstanding how tiny it is, has always been high in terms of the region.

NNAMDIIndeed, Ronald Neumann, Bahrain's housing the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet. How important is the Kingdom to U.S. relations and to U.S. strategy in that part of the world?

NEUMANNIt's reasonably critical. We depend on the Navy, ultimately U.S. Navy, to keep the Straits of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf open for the flow of oil, which has a major impact on economic health of you, me, everybody listening to this program. In fact, when that was in jeopardy during the Iran-Iraq War and we were escorting Kuwaiti tankers and actually fighting with the Iranians, and blowing up Iranian oil platforms and sinking Iranian ships, some of which people now have forgotten, Bahrain was one of our major facilitating bases.

NEUMANNWithout the fleet in the Persian Gulf and without its command and control facilities there, you would have an enormous problem doing that. Secondly, that naval presence also operates much more broadly. All of the anti-piracy operations in the Horn of Africa are all also controlled by the 5th Fleet in Bahrain.

NEUMANNSo this is a very significant piece. Lastly, I think maybe a little technical. We had a huge problem during the tanker escort operations with no minesweepers. They're small ships, they're not ocean going. We had to get them out of moth balls. We have them home ported in Bahrain, so they are now available for minesweeping in the Persian Gulf. Without the headquarters, you will not have the mine sweepers.

NNAMDIThen onto the telephones. Here is Shaka in Fort Washington, Md. Shaka, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

SHAKAHey, Kojo, how you doing?

NNAMDII'm well.

SHAKAWell, first of all, thank you for having this topic on your show. This is a topic that was overlooked, I think, in the past couple of months, to the great detriment of the Bahraini people. But I want to address a couple of things. One, Mr. Neumann, Mr. Robert (sic) Neumann, I can tell he was a very good diplomat because he talked that diplomatic language that really means nothing.

SHAKAHere he was, I assume, the representative or the bastion of democracy, yet, you know, here we are supporting a government that is stifling democracy. We're calling for democracy in Libya, but we're not calling for democracy in Bahrain. We're supporting armed and well-funded rebels in Libya, but we refuse to support unarmed and unfunded rebels in Bahrain.

NNAMDIOkay, let me take that first question first because, Ambassador Neumann, the U.S. response to unrest in Bahrain has been decidedly different from its reactions to uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia and, as our caller points out for that matter, Libya. Why do you think that is?

NEUMANNYes, I'd be delighted to respond to your caller. By the way, Robert was my father. It's Ronald in my case. But let me try to make this as clear as I can for you. We have multiple interests in Bahrain. We have an interest in promoting democracy and liberalization and we have a strategic interest that is key to the well-being of Americans. You may not like that, but that is my view of our interests.

NEUMANNBy the way, I do not speak for our government. I'm retired. Nor do I speak for the American Academy of Diplomacy. The administration has been trying, in my understanding, to push both interests forward. They haven't had as much success as they would like, yet they are urging the Bahraini government both in private and in public, but much more in private to liberalize.

NEUMANNI also think -- it is my judgment, not the U.S. government's judgment, that liberalization in a situation where you have two populations opposed to each other has to have some balancing. That if you do not understand that and you think this is just about democracy, then you have not been paying attention to what we've been talking about. Thank you.

NNAMDIIn addition, Akbar Ahmed, President Obama met with the aforementioned crown prince of Bahrain when he was D.C. in early June. The White House releasing a statement at the time saying that President Obama welcomed the Kingdom's decision to lift emergency security measures and the announcement that the government and its opponents would begin talks on political reform. What do you say?

AHMEDI would say, Kojo, that I'm hopeful in the person of the crown prince. Remember, this is going to be the next ruler of Bahrain. Everything I've heard about him, I haven't had the pleasure of meeting him, encourages me. He has been playing a role and he was incidentally, when the troubles began, spearheading a movement towards dialog, creating bridges, reaching out to the opposition and then he was shunted aside or marginalized and more hardliners took over.

AHMEDAnd in that sense, his role was minimized. Now, I think that's a pity because he is a man who, at this moment, can play a role. And I hope sooner or later that he's back in a major role able to implement his vision of a harmonious and peaceful society.

NNAMDIShaka, I know you're still on the phone. Can I ask you a question?

SHAKAHello?

NNAMDIShaka, I know you're there. Can I ask you a question?

SHAKAPlease, Please.

NNAMDITalks between the ruling family and opposition leaders in Bahrain are set to resume in early July. What do you, Shaka, think should come of those talks? What do you think will come of those talks and what would be your best hope for a positive resolution?

SHAKAOkay. Well, what I think will come of the talks is probably not much. What I would like to see, the result of those talks, is a move towards a one man, one vote. If we are talking about exporting democracy, we should be doing just that in all cases, not just some. You know, it seems as though we suffer from what's called situational ethics. Our ethics change based on the situation. Now, Mr. Neumann's response to me was that I wasn't paying attention because it's not all about democracy. I understand that.

SHAKAI also understand that the 5th Fleet is there and since -- it's mainly to keep an eye on Iran and to keep the Persian Gulf open to the free flow of oil in order to benefit American capitalism. And that is why the Bahraini people are suffering, in my opinion. They are being sacrificed on the altar of capitalism and on the altar of this anti-Iranian field.

NNAMDIWell allow me to ask Ronald Neumann to respond, because when we say the Bahraini people, as Alex pointed out earlier, we're talking about a population that maybe currently is either 70/30 or 60/30 Shia-Sunni, correct?

NEUMANNYeah.

NNAMDISo nobody speaks for all Bahraini people.

NEUMANNNo, nobody does. Let me make two things clear, because I don't want to be speaking only in faith for the Bahraini government. I think they have used too much violence and I think they need to liberalize, otherwise they are going to be putting a lot of very severe pressures back in a bottle that will come back to haunt them later. But when you have two communities and people don't move between the communities, you have a problem when you try to talk that democracy can only be one man, one vote.

NEUMANNWe don't have that kind of democracy in the United States. We have a Senate that represents the states. Two senators per, and we could not have agreed on the Constitution of the United States had we insisted in the Constitutional Convention on a one man, one vote pure system. So I think it is not correct factually to say that democracy translates automatically to one man, one vote. It translates to representation of the popular will, but it may have to take into account various other balancing forces as ours did.

NNAMDILet's look at how the Lebanese government is made up. Akbar Ahmed, the same question that I asked Shaka to you. Talks between the ruling family and oppositional leaders being set to resume in early July. What do you think will come of those talks and what's the best hope for a positive resolution?

AHMEDI think the Bahraini ruling family is now highly conscious that there is a problem, there is a crisis. And I think, once again, the crown prince who's been working behind the scenes will help move this in the right direction. I think, Kojo, it's really important what Shaka's raised, the whole principle of democracy in the Arab world. Again, I go back to my categorization. If we look at the category -- and Shaka, I hope you're listening to this -- you've got Gadhafi and Assad as straightforward dictators.

AHMEDAnd then, you have the kings, the kingly dynasties, where it's more complicated. And they, by and large, carry their populations unless there's a shear conflict as is taking place in Bahrain. And here again, Kojo, step back and think of royal families -- perhaps the time has come for the royal families to exit on the stage, on the world stage. But then think of the House of Windsor. You may recall just a few years ago the Queen of England, her majesty, is saying it's been a horrible year. And we almost said, well, that's it it's over for the House of Windsor and Prince Charles is never going to be King.

AHMEDAnd then, we have the royal wedding of William and Kate, and suddenly all of England, all of Britain is in love once again with the House of Windsor. So royal families, I've noticed in history, tend to be resilient if they're responding to the mood and the needs of their people. And I hope that the Bahrainian family, royal family, ruling family will be sensitive now to the needs of their own people.

NNAMDIShaka, thank you very much for your call and your helping to provoke a part of this discussion. Here is Amin in Dover, De. Amin, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

AMINThank you, Kojo. My comment is that you see the royal family represses to a certain extent, and the protest movement also wants freedom, because that's the bottom line. Once they have freedom, then they're going to have democracy or be able to choose what form of government they want to have. But the bottom line is, they don't have freedom. And I don't think they want to be with Iran on one side or Saudi Arabia, they don't want to be with either one of them. They're better off having the U.S. leave there. You know, in the long run, it's good for everyone all around.

NNAMDIOkay.

AMINAnd that's the bottom line that...

NNAMDIAllow me to have Alex Delmar-Morgan respond to that, because he's been on the ground covering the situation in Bahrain. During the course of those protests and demonstrations, Alex, any sentiments expressed about the presence of the U.S. Fifth Fleet?

DELMAR-MORGANNot really. There wasn't any particular objection to the Fifth Fleet. It's not something I -- I came across among the protestors, among those who opposed to the government. I didn't find it a particular issue. I didn't find any real hostilities on the side of the protestors against the U.S. The only thing they wanted more and still want is for the U.S. to adopt a harder stance on Bahrain, and that's something which I imagine we'll continue.

NNAMDIOkay. Thank you very much. Alex Delmar-Morgan is a reporter with the Wall Street Journal. He spent three years covering the Middle East. He's been reporting on Bahrain for the six months. Akbar Ahmed, thank you for joining us.

AHMEDThank you, Kojo.

NNAMDIAkbar Ahmed is the Ibn Khaldun chair of Islamic Studies at American University, and a distinguished visiting affiliate at the U.S. Naval Academy. He's also a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Ronald Neumann, thank you for joining us.

NEUMANNYou're most welcome.

NNAMDIRonald Neumann is the president of the American Academy of Diplomacy. He served as U.S. Ambassador to Bahrain from 2001 to 2004. It's a situation that we will be keeping track of. We're going to take a short break. Another situation we'll be keeping track of, gay marriage and Maryland. Now that it has been passed by the legislature in the state of New York, we revisit the issue in Maryland, where it's likely to come up in the next session of the General Assembly. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.