Catholic bishops in Minnesota are preparing an anti-gay marriage campaign.

Bishops have yet to unveil their campaign, which seeks to undermine the elections of pro-gay marriage candidates in the general election, but the Minnesota Independent is reporting that several dioceses have confirmed the plan.

“Within the next week or so, you will receive a letter from me and a DVD,” wrote Bishop John Quinn of the Winona Diocese in a recent newsletter. “The bishops of Minnesota are alarmed by the continuing attacks on the institution of marriage, and we are taking action.”

Quinn goes on to say traditional marriage is under attack from efforts to legalize gay marriage.

“I hope that you will become one of the thousands of Catholics who have contacted legislators and told them that marriage is a lifetime relationship between one man and one woman,” he adds.

While the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis are not talking details, the campaign is certain to touch on the possibility of the state electing a pro-gay marriage governor. Democratic (DFL) candidate Mark Dayton and Tom Horner, who is running as an independent, support the legalization of gay marriage, while Republican Tom Emmer does not.

Emmer is the GOP candidate closely associated with a boycott against Target for giving MN Forward, an independent political fund supporting Emmer's bid to become governor, $150,000. Gay rights group the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) responded by giving pro-gay marriage candidates an equal amount of money.

“Marriage equality is coming to Minnesota, and they're clearly not happy about it,” Michael Bayly of the Catholic Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities, a gay-inclusive Catholic group, told the Minnesota Independent. “In many ways I see what they're doing as a last ditch effort to try and get Catholic voters to turn the election away from a win for the Democrats and thus marriage equality.”

The National Organization for Marriage (NOM), the nation's most vociferous opponent of gay marriage, has already spent heavily in the state.

“This is our time to stand up and defend marriage as a unique institution that, from the beginning of human history and in every culture, is the union of one man and one woman for the propagation of the human family and the upbringing of children,” Bishop Quinn wrote.