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This is exactly how I interpreted his remark. His comments about a marriage amendment are empty political rhetoric unless he wants to run for some legislature, which seems unlikely. The President has no authority to amend the constitution. That is done by the Senate, the House of Representatives and the fifty state legislatures.
In any case the amendment will fail. They would need a super-majority in both the House and Senate as well as of the state legislatures. While it is unlikely that they would get all of those bodies to support an amendment for marriage equality, they are unlikely to get all of them to support an amendment to prevent gay people from getting married. There is a strong sentiment in this country that provisions of the constitutions are supposed to protect individual and minority rights, not block them.
However, this does provide very good reasons for opposing his candidacy. This seems unfortunate as he is appears to be edging out Mitt Romney as the most likely Republican nominee. While he is unlikely to be able to do much on this issue in the short run, it is indicative of how he is likely to use his presidential power on other issues. What other individual and minority rights is he likely to oppose?
The most far reaching impact that he could have, were he elected would be on the composition of the Supreme Court. As I have pointed out here, he is unlikely to be able to do much here unless he wins a second term and none of the liberals resign while Barack Obama is still in office so as to preserve the current composition. He could, however, prevent the court from becoming more liberal, which is more likely than not should Barack Obama be re-elected.
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