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Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson -- a two-time divorcé, single father and member of a national group that promotes gay marriage -- is boycotting a state-supported declaration to advocate and celebrate traditional marriage.

He says it is "insensitive" because it excludes single parents, divorced parents and gay families.

Anderson was invited, along with his nonexistent spouse, to attend today's kickoff to Marriage Week USA, which starts Saturday. Gov. Olene Walker and other mayors will sign a declaration promoting marriage. Walker's spokeswoman Amanda Covington said there will be 60 signatures.

"The whole point of marriage week is to strengthen the family," Covington said.

The declaration still was being written Thursday evening.

She said a line notes that marriage "binds men and women together."

The state has participated in Marriage Week for the past 11 years. Last year's declaration signed by former Gov. Mike Leavitt noted that marriage "provides irreplaceable personal happiness" and "creates the safest place for children to flourish . . .."

"It sends a rather insensitive message of exclusion to those who have different kinds of families," Anderson said. "We ought to all join together and try to support each other, encourage good, stable, loving relationships among people in all kinds of familial relationships."

"I, like most other people, have always wanted to have a partner to share life with, to build a history with. To assume that only those who are presently in a married relationship value families is a hugely mistaken notion."

Anderson recently accepted a post as a "key spokesman" for a new national pro-gay-marriage group called Freedom to Marry.

Covington said that Walker defines marriage as between a man and a woman. She said the governor has not taken a position on a bill in the Legislature that prevents the state from recognizing gay civil unions or marriages performed in other states or countries. Anderson opposes that bill.

hmay@sltrib.com