New laws giving full marriage rights to homosexual couples could be introduced under reforms being considered by the Coalition, The Daily Telegraph has learned.

Lynne Featherstone, the Liberal Democrat Equalities Minister, is expected to announce that same-sex civil partnership ceremonies will be allowed in churches and other religious settings for the first time.

The move, likely to come early next year, could be a prelude to overhauling the law on marriage itself, which currently applies only to the union of a man and a woman.

Gay rights campaigners welcomed the developments and urged the Government to press ahead and allow homosexual couples to marry, and heterosexual couples to register as civil partners.

Senior Church of England figures said “blurring” the distinction between marriage and civil partnerships would be “unhelpful”.

Under current rules, same-sex couples can register a civil partnership, but not a civil marriage. Civil partnerships confer the same basic legal rights as marriage but critics argue that they have a “second class” status and enforce a form of “sexual apartheid”.

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