The ammo this time around: the seven-paragraph resolution along with a 26-page explanation complete with Q-and-A, bullet points, statistics, quotes, endnotes, even a chart.

"It's not a moral crusade," Sutherland President Paul Mero said Tuesday. "Our interest is to clarify our intent."

And the conservative Salt Lake City think tank still intends for every city and county to pass the resolution - just as Kanab did in January. That's why the briefing paper has been sent to every legislator, mayor, and city and county council member in the state.

Mero maintains the social costs associated with the breakdown of the "natural family" make nontraditional households a public-policy issue.

"Ultimately, everything becomes monetary," he said.

The nonbinding resolution touts marriage between men and women as "ordained of God" and envisions homes "open to a full quiver of children." It also promotes young women growing into "wives, homemakers and mothers" and young men becoming "husbands, home builders and fathers."

Sutherland's Q-and-A portion attempts to explain what that language means. Some examples:

Q: "Does the resolution call on women to stay home, have babies, serve their families and forgo a career?

A: "No. But it does say that . . . if babies are to be born, a man and a woman should first be married; and if children are to be reared properly, the task is best done by a mother who is home a significant amount of time."

Q: "So the resolution would not consider a gay relationship to be a natural family?

A: "That is correct. . . . It is not a legal marriage nor is it a male-female relationship."

Such explanations fail to pacify critics.

"I stand for compassion and inclusiveness and am adamantly opposed to your proposed resolution," wrote Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson in a letter that will be mailed to the institute today. "I'm a divorced father and my son and I are as great a family as any of your 'natural families.' So are the wonderful lesbian women and their two daughters who live across the street from me."

City officials who rejected the resolution the first time are not eager to wade into hot water again.

"I agree with them that having a mother and father in a home is the best situation in most cases," said Alpine Mayor Hunt Willoughby, who refused to put the resolution on the City Council's agenda in February. "But this doesn't change my mind. . . . [The resolution] really doesn't have anything to do with the things city [government] should be doing. "

Valerie Larabee, executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Community Center, said institute officials should be more careful about the company they keep.

"They must have coffee with [Utah Sen.] Chris Buttars," she said. "The Constitution doesn't talk about what a family looks like or prescribe how many children it should have or what the wife should be doing all day long. I'm glad it doesn't, and it's not time to start prescribing that in public policy today."

csmart@sltrib.com