There was a huge movement that led up to [gay marriage legilization], and I played a small role in the great scheme of things. But it was really a privilege to get to do it.
Donald Verrilli Jr.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.
Donald Verrilli Jr.The fact that you have a policy of such consequence directly affecting millions of people and you have a legal question of great consequence about the scope of the president's authority to act in implementing the immigration laws in this way and you have a one-line decision from the court affirming by an equally-divided court, it's an inevitable consequence of where we are.
Donald Verrilli Jr.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.
Donald Verrilli Jr.The cases involving the question of whether U.S. courts should be open to claims of international human rights violations brought by foreign persons against foreign government officials. And the State Department on the one side has got a very consistent and powerful view that U.S. courts should be open to those claims because there needs to be a place in the world where they can be brought. And those human rights norms ought to be real and enforceable, and we ought to be a beacon to the world.
Donald Verrilli Jr.I did think Justice [Antony] Kennedy's opinion on Lawrence was critical to that because it really, what Lawrence in one sense was, of course, about consensual sex being something that the government can't regulate. But really in a more fundamental sense, what it was saying, "Look. Gay people are normal people, and they get to live normal lives. They're not criminals by virtue of the fact of being gay."
Donald Verrilli Jr.