Objectors to Gene Robinson’s appointment as bishop of New Hampshire plan to stand up and either read out prepared statements or walk out when the bishop conducting the ceremony asks if anyone of those present disapproves.

Robinson’s appointment threatens to derail attempts by Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to hold the worldwide Anglican communion together despite widely differing views on homosexuality.

The ordination will take place in a university sports arena with the altar on a platform above an ice rink. This has prompted church jokes that the new bishop will be “skating on thin ice”.

Robinson’s boyfriend Mark Andrew, his ex-wife Isabella and their daughters Jamee and Ella are expected to sit with him at the ceremony.

On the eve of the ordination, Robinson drew attention to the Prince of Wales in his call for Anglicans to modernise their views on sexuality. He said in an interview: “We have this very odd situation in Britain with the heir to the throne cohabiting with a woman without the benefit of marriage because the church over which Charles is going to be head when he becomes king still does not allow remarriage in church.”

A congregation of up to 5,000 is expected today, with a record turnout of 50 American and Canadian bishops, but the organisers are braced for embarrassment.

Jan Nunley, an official with the Episcopal Church of the United States, said that if objectors do read out statements this will not halt the ceremony. “If there are any substantive reasons, not just ‘We don’t like him because he’s gay’, then they would probably take them off to another room,” she said. “I suspect someone would crack open a hymnal and say: ‘Let’s sing while we wait’.”

The conservatives’ plans were supported by Canon Bill Atwood, director of Ekklesia, an organisation which backs conservative primates and discontented Anglicans in America.

“Gene Robinson’s whole lifestyle is a contradiction to the office of bishop,” he said. “How can he stand and say, ‘In the name of God I vow to guard the unity of the church’, knowing that his very ordination is splitting the Anglican communion?”

Protesters are expected to gather outside the sports arena and the American Ang-lican Council, an umbrella body for groups opposed to the ordination, will hold an alternative service at a church about two miles away.

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