Laurence H. Tribe, left, speaks at Austin Hall at the Law School during a debate over gay marriage in the wake of the Massachusetts Supreme Judical Court ruling affirming marriage for same-sex couples. Janet Halley is at right.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s ruling in support of gay marriage drew sharp criticism from Harvard Law School professors at a panel discussion yesterday afternoon.

The court’s ruling—issued in November and reaffirmed in a message to the state Senate on Wednesday—evinced “self-intoxicating narcissism and arrogance right on the surface,” said Williams Professor of Criminal Justice Richard D. Parker.

Before an audience of more than 200 in Austen Hall, Parker said the ruling in the case Goodridge v. Department of Public Health was “as sloppy of an opinion as you could want to read.”

Tyler Professor of Constitutional Law Laurence H. Tribe ’62 responded with a passionate defense of the opinion, calling it a “masterpiece.”

Tribe last month authored a friend-of-the-court brief, signed by 18 professors from Harvard Law School, encouraging Massachusetts judges to explicitly support same-sex marriage, rather than civil unions.

But Tribe found himself in a minority of one as Professor of Law Janet Halley and Assistant Professor of Law David J. Barron ’89 joined the chorus criticizing the court’s decision.

Parker argued that the court’s decision subverted democratic processes.

He predicted a popular backlash and said that judges ought to face consequences as a result of their arrogance.

“The price should be a change in the constitution of the state so that judges have to be elected—or at least they should be term-limited,” Parker said.

He said the court should have taken a more “gradualist” approach, allowing the state legislature to institute civil unions instead of gay marriage.

According to Parker, if the court had pursued a civil union approach, voters would have slowly come around to accept gay marriage.

He predicted that a pro-gay marriage majority would likely have emerged in Massachusetts within a decade.

All four professors mulled the political implications of the ruling. Parker said that the focus on gay marriage could push Senator John F. Kerry, D-Mass., into a corner.

Kerry, the frontrunner for his party’s presidential nomination, issued a statement on Wednesday reiterating his support for civil unions but opposing gay marriage.

“I don’t think Kerry is going to let Bush—as a rhetorical matter—be less against [gay marriage] than he is,” Parker said.