SANTO DOMINGO.- The Revisory Assembly’s rejection of the proposal to bestow legal status to the marriages performed by country’s Protestant churches has unleashed a spat between that religious community and the Catholic church, which through the Dominican State’s Concordat agreement with the Vatican, does have such a right.

Yesterday the protestant denominations said the rejection has been such a hard blow, that say they are "tired" and threaten to make the lawmakers pay, whereas cardinal Nicolas de Jesus Lopez Rodriguez countered that no organism can come here and dictate norms."

Several evangelical communities took note of the legislators who voted against the Executive Branch’s proposal, and called on their members to take their attitude into account for in the 2010 and 2012 elections, to vote against them.

The Dominican Confederation of Evangelical Unity (Codue), the Civic Movement Moral Democratic Response, headed by the reverend Domingo Paulino Moya, as well as the Evangelical Council of the Assemblies of God, affirm that they won’t stand for what they say Congress did to them by approving article 44 of the Constitution.

"This is an attack and a blow against our evangelical community composed of more than 1.5 million Dominicans who deserve respect and consideration and that we understand that this doesn’t correspond with a Modern State, on the contrary it’s a step backward towards an anachronistic Constitution," said Codue president Reynaldo Aquino.