Tory former Cabinet minister John Gummer, who sits in the Lords as Lord Deben, said the current marriage system was a "fudge".
He told peers his Ecumenical Marriage Bill would not require the Church of England to make the change but remove a "legal impediment" from them being able to do so.
"We live in an ecumenical world and have to come to terms with that," said Lord Deben, a former member of the Church of England general synod who is now a Catholic.
He said the Church of England should be "challenged" to decide whether it wanted to "make this step towards a more ecumenical society".
But the move was opposed by the Bishop of Winchester, the Right Rev Tim Dakin, who said there was already considerable flexibility over marriages flowing from the relationship between churches of different denominations.
He warned that the Bill was a departure from the long standing constitutional convention that the Church of England made its own legislation by synodical process.
"This Bill is not the way to encourage ecumenical hospitality for which we continue to work and to which I am personally committed," the Bishop said.
Tory Lord Robathan told Lord Deben that he was "instinctively uneasy" about a measure proposed by "somebody who has rejected the Church of England".
For the Government, Baroness Vere of Norbiton said it was not conventional for Parliament to legislate directly on matters that "properly belong to the Church".
She added: "Without the Church of England's consent to changing the law that affects it the Government cannot support the Bill."
Peter Williams from Catholic Voices told Premier he's worried that the proposal has come from parliament and not Anglicans.
"I'd be happy for Catholics to be allowed to be married in places like Westminster Abbey but ultimately this has to be a decision that's made by the Anglican Communion themselves," he said.
The Bill was given an unopposed second reading and goes forward to its detailed committee stage at a later date but without Government support stands little chance of becoming law.
Listen to Premier's Alex Williams speaking with Peter Williams here:
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