DALLAS -- Declaring the leadership of the Episcopal Church in the United States "deaf" to biblical authority and tradition, 2,700 conservative Episcopalians opened a two-day conference here vowing to press for changes that could split the denomination.

Speakers alternately mourned the church's confirmation as bishop this summer of an openly gay priest as "a betrayal of our children," and excoriated the liberal wing of the denomination as "scripturally ignorant" for supporting him and giving tacit approval of same-sex blessings.

Each conference registrant received a seven-point draft proposal called "A Place to Stand -- A Call to Action," which set out a series of denominational beliefs.

Those included a repudiation of the triennial convention that confirmed as bishop the Rev. V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire and a redirection of tithings from the national church to "biblically orthodox mission and ministry."

Working from that draft, conference leaders plan to present a finished petition next week to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion, who has convened an unprecedented emergency meeting in London of the 37 other leaders of the 70-million-member church.

Leaders of the conference hope that petition may sway leaders of the worldwide church to create a new alignment of the American Episcopal church.

Bishop Robert W. Duncan Jr., head of the Pittsburgh Diocese and a leader of the conservative movement, received a standing ovation of almost half-minute when he was introduced to the crowd assembled in the ballroom of Dallas' largest hotel.

"Our church has embraced schism and heresy," said Duncan, who compared the moments leading up to Robinson's confirmation this summer to being "on my way to my own execution."

"Our leadership were deaf to one another, deaf to the word, deaf to tradition and deaf to the communion," he said.

Duncan was one of 46 bishops registered at the convention, but only 24 of them are from the American Episcopal Church; the rest are from Canada and other provinces around the world. The 2.3-million-member Episcopal Church USA has 150 active bishops.

Also attending the conference are 799 priests, 1,413 lay persons and 103 seminarians representing nearly 600 parishes, 105 dioceses and all 50 states.

"So many of the people who came to see me today are from parts of the country where they feel very isolated and very alone" in parishes or dioceses that are hostile to conservative Episcopal views, Duncan said in an interview. The conference, he said, "helps them to recognize how many they are and to encourage them."

Originally planned as a gathering of 400 at a church in the suburb of Plano, the conference mushroomed following this summer's General Convention.

The Rev. David Roseberry, rector of Christ Church in Plano, organized the conference, which is sponsored by the American Anglican Council, a coalition of biblically orthodox bishops, priests and laity.

Roseberry said organizing the conference was easier than explaining the direction the church has taken.

"We've all had to explain the Gospel and why the change in policy is a departure from the revealed scripture of God's word," he said, "and why the church convention has erred and must be rebuked, rejected or corrected in some way.

"We belong to the wider Anglican Communion. We will not depart from that. Indeed, we have not departed from it. The Episcopal Church has begun a wayward drift that will finally and drastically, if left unchallenged, distort the strength of unity of the Anglican Communion."