JURIST - Paper Chase: Mass. governor will seek constitutional amendment after gay marriage ruling

From the anchor desk... Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney says that in the wake of yesterday's ruling by the state Supreme Judicial Court indicating that gay couples have a right to marry under the current Massachusetts Constitution, he will support a constitutional amendment limiting marriage to heterosexual unions. Read his official press release here. An amendment along these lines was defeated by the state legislature last year, but will be debated again in February. Read the text of the proposed Protection of Marriage Amendment; background information is available from Massachusetts Citizens for Marriage and the Massachusetts Family Institute. If passed this time, the marriage amendment could be presented to state voters for ratification as early as 2006. AP has more.

UPDATE: Harvard Law professor and constitutional scholar Larry Tribe offered his first impressions of the Goodridge gay mariage case in his constitutional law class yesterday. Notes from the class are here, courtesy a weblog by HLS student "Waddling Thunder."