LONDON -- Ministers are expected to publish plans to enable same-sex couples to "marry" in church, the BBC has learned.

Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone is to propose lifting the ban on civil partnerships taking place in religious settings in England and Wales.

There are no plans to compel religious organizations to hold ceremonies and the Church of England has said it would not allow its churches to be used.

Gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell said the change was "long overdue".

Civil partnership ceremonies are currently entirely secular.

Men in the U.K. with historical convictions for consensual gay sex are to have their criminal records wiped clean, it was announced Friday. Thousands of men were prosecuted over four decades for having sex with a partner aged 16 or over when the act was illegal. They have protested that their criminal records have dogged them throughout their lives.

The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) expresses grave disappointment at Malawi’s recent enactment of a law criminalizing sexual relations between women. Such a law is an affront to human dignity and seriously undermines Malawi’s human rights commitments under international law.

The ICJ urges that the Parliament undertake an immediate review with an eye to repealing all laws that currently criminalize sexual activity on the basis of the sex of the partners.

SHANGHAI, China—"I'm here to find a lesbian, to be with me and to build a home," No. 11 says to the crowd clustered on floor cushions at a sunlit yoga studio in Shanghai. No. 11 is a muscular man in a flannel shirt and cargo pants, and he easily commands the attention of the crowd of 40 or so young men and women who are gingerly sipping glasses of wine and whispering to their neighbors.

"In my view, a 30-year-old man should start thinking about having a family, but two men can't hold each other's hands in the street. We're not allowed to be a family," he says. The crowd nods.