Maintaining its ongoing efforts to preserve the definition of mar­riage as the union of one man and one woman, the New Jersey Catholic Conference will host the National Organization for Marriage’s Summer of Marriage Bus Tour at noon July 20 at the Statehouse in Trenton.

The visit to Trenton is one of the tour’s 19 stops that will stretch across Maine, Indiana, Ohio, Mary­land, Washington, New York and New Jersey.

For more than a decade, the Catholic bishops of New Jersey have dedicated themselves to preserving the definition of marriage as a union of one man and one woman. This definition has been challenged in the state, as in many states throughout the nation, in both the courts and legislatures.

Church leaders have held that the traditional understanding of mar­riage is not merely some obscure doctrinal fine point but a fact of human nature, recognized from time immemorial by people of virtually every faith and culture.

Attacks on marriage continue throughout the nation. Recently, New York’s Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo, was reported as saying that if elected governor, he would make pas­sage of a same-sex marriage bill one of his priorities. In Washington, the Defense of Marriage Law is under full attack. Here in New Jersey, the Su­preme Court is considering a request to establish same-sex marriage.

The NJCC is inviting broad participation from all those who do not want marriage to be redefined. Dioceses are encouraged to send representatives.

For the New Jersey bishops’ statements on marriage, go to: www.njcathconf.com/content/family_life_marriage_teaching.php

According to its website, the National Organization for Marriage is a non-profit group founded in 2007 in response to the growing need for an organized opposition to same-sex marriage in state legislatures. NOM serves as a national resource for marriage-related initiatives at the state and local level.

For more information, go to www.nationformarriage.org