Capping a three-day emergency meeting, members of the American Anglican Council, a group of conservative Episcopalian churches, asked primates of the Anglican Communion's 38 worldwide branches to declare conservatives "the true church and censure or discipline those who supported" the gay bishop, said Bruce Mason, spokesman for the council.

The Episcopal Church is the American branch of the world Anglican Communion.

The primates meet next week with England's Archbishop of Canterbury, the world's senior Anglican cleric, to decide whether to act on the conservatives' request. Many Anglican primates, especially those in developing countries, oppose gay clergy and same-sex unions.

Conservatives also told supporters to redirect financial giving to like-minded ministries and asked "orthodox bishops" to take conservative parishes - even those in other dioceses - under their care.

"Homosexuality for us - nowhere is it mentioned in the Bible in a positive light, and we don't believe it's an inborn identity," said Mason. "It's a brokenness."

The council's 225 member parishes comprise a minority of the 7,347 Episcopal parishes in the U.S.

Controversy over homosexuality in the church has brewed since 1976, when Episcopalians first began drafting an official position on sexuality. The latest dispute arose when a general convention of Episcopalians in August approved the election of Gene Robinson, an openly gay priest, as bishop of New Hampshire. The convention also allowed local parishes to bless same-sex unions.

Episcopalians nationwide expressed dismay at the prospect of a church split. Frank Griswold, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, said in a written statement that it "concerns me deeply when Christians use inflammatory rhetoric when speaking of one another or issue ultimatums."

But Praveen Bunyan, rector of conservative St. James Church in Newport Beach, said that if the Dallas conference "did not come through, we would lose most of our members. They are at the point of saying, 'We have tolerated in the name of love, but we have come to a point where enough is enough.'"

Bunyan, who attended the conference, said conservatives' aim was not to condemn homosexuals but to affirm "our convictions of what scripture and the Lord have taught us about standing for the truth in love."

Susan Russell, head of a national Episcopalian ministry to gays and lesbians based at All Saints Church in Pasadena, disagreed that conservatives are simply adhering to scripture.

"We have people who are selective literalists," she said. "They'll pick and choose which passages to take literally. I believe this has nothing to do with sex or theology. It has to do with power. It's a small group of people who have seen the church change and they don't like the changes - that they have to share the table with people of color and now gay people. This is their last-ditch effort to re-create the church in their own image."

Wendy Lords, member of St. Clement's by the Sea Church in San Clemente, said she wished both sides could find common ground.

Following August's general convention, Lords presided over a diocesan listening session in Tustin where "by the end of the day, people felt they could agree to disagree," she said.