Wallace is a lesbian who says she and her partner, Kathleen West, are in the process of adopting a child. There is no mention in the convocation material about including speakers who represent traditional Anglicanism that regards homosexual behavior as sinful.

While not billed as such, the convocation appears to be an attempt to shore up support for homosexual marriage and other gay rights causes being promoted in the Northeast. The Episcopal Church (USA) has been in a crisis mode since it installed as a bishop V. Eugene Robinson, who left his wife and children to live with a homosexual.

Ellison may be the most radical of the two speakers at the Episcopal convocation. He was a member of a Presbyterian Church (USA) task force that wrote a controversial report on human sexuality that was rejected by the 1991 General Assembly. That report called for ignoring almost all Biblical injunctions against sexual immorality - both for adults and children.

While the General Assembly voted overwhelmingly against the report, it is still used by the denomination as a resource on sexuality.

Ellison is also the author of Same-Sex Marriage?: A Christian Ethical Analysis, which was published by the United Church of Christ's Pilgrim Press. According to a review of that book by Richard Ostling of the Associated Press, Ellison doesn't support homosexual marriage - or traditional marriage. He believes both involve social pressure to make people submit to an unjust standard.

Besides, marriage, whether for heterosexuals or homosexuals, fails to recognize "polyamorous" people who are involved with "multiple partners," he says.

"How exactly does the number of partners affect the moral quality of a relationship?" he asks in Same-Sex Marriage. "Could it be that limiting intimate partnerships to only two people at a time is no guarantee of avoiding exploitation?"

"Many of his fellow homosexuals doubt marriage is worth seeking or supporting, Ellison reports, because the institution has been so oppressive and so heterosexual," Ostling said in his review. "He, for one, has no intention of marrying his male partner if that becomes possible."

Ostling adds, "Like other gay writers, Ellison wonders whether government should abolish marriage altogether rather than redefine it to include gays."

Ellison teaches ethics at Bangor Theological Seminary in Maine, a United Church of Christ school.

In spite of his views about sexuality and marriage - which conflict with PCUSA polity - Ellison has managed to keep his credentials as an ordained Presbyterian minister. He is a member of the Presbytery of Northern New England, which has been a cauldron of support for homosexual activists.

And he continues to be in the limelight of the denomination. In 2004, he was the featured speaker at the Welcoming Presbyterians Dinner that was sponsored by three gay advocacy groups as an adjunct to the 216th General Assembly in Richmond.

"The church should not promote marriage," he said at that dinner, but "encourage egalitarian partnerships. Justice-love - a very queer virtue - should be the normative expectation of all our relationships."

He also testified before a 216th General Assembly committee that was considering overtures calling for the repeal of the denomination's "fidelity/chastity" ordination standard and the Authoritative Interpretation that undergirds the constitutional requirement.

He called the PCUSA's standard "shameful and inconsistent with the gospel."

END