The part that the public sees is the arguments up at the podium and the briefs that we file. But a significant part of the job - in fact, I'd say I spend more of my time on this part of the job, which is deciding what the position of the United States will be in the cases that we're going to be participating in before the court.

What we once thought of as necessary and proper reasons for ostracizing and marginalizing gay people, we now understand do not justify that kind of oppression.

I feel so blessed to have had the chance to do this job [ U.S. Solicitor General] in this moment in our history. It's been an incredible thing.

Gay and lesbian people are equal. They deserve equal protection of the laws, and they deserve it now.

I do think that the instant nature of the reaction now, I do think it has an effect, that people's instant reactions to things are valid and valuable. But they're not always right, and they're not always capturing the full reality.

I do think it's true that a huge amount of the oversight that the White House engages in with respect to the Executive Branch is out of fear that somebody's going to do something crazy and drive the president off a cliff.

I think what Lawrence did was provide an assurance that gay and lesbian couples could live openly in society as free people and start families and raise families and participate fully in their communities without fear. And two things flowed from that, I think. One is that has brought us to the point where we understand now in a way even that we did not fully understand in Lawrence, that gay and lesbian people and gay and lesbian couples are full and equal members of the community.