There was this point about, you know, the basic point there as well - this statute treats some parts of the country different from others, and what's the justification for that? Well, you know, I had eight million things to say about that, but he put it in such a sharp, excruciating way that it was just very hard to handle it effectively.

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.

If people can live openly and be equal, then you have to have a pretty strong reason to say they can't get married.

I'm representing the United States. And I'm representing the United States, and my office is representing the United States day after day in front of the court. And I think it's the right thing to do, to carry that out with some dignity and some respect for the process and respect for the institution. And so that led me to just, you know, move the dial a little bit in the direction of calmness.

After a couple of years, I realized that this was actually true, that his gave me the ability to go to a different place and, hopefully, have a stronger impact.

In the past, presidents had been consulted about those kinds of decisions by SGs, and I thought it was the right thing to do.

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.