The Fourteenth Amendment. The equal protection clause in this amendment has been held by SCOTUS to incorporate all Constitutional rights at the state level. Even in a state of emergency, the rights granted in the Constitution cannot be infringed absent just cause. Certainly prohibiting drive in church services, for one example, is a blatant infringement of the right to free expression of religion. There’s NO safety issue involved since nobody is coming into personal contact.
A state of emergency gives governors extra powers, but, contrary what some seem to believe, it does not grant absolute, dictatorial powers.
HOWEVER, those lawsuits will have to be filed by people or organizations in each state where this abusive behavior by the governors is taking place. The DOJ will then bring its legal firepower to court on behalf of the plaintiffs.
The good news here is that Federal civil rights violations are one of the few areas of the law where plaintiffs can recover their legal fees as part of the settlement.
I actually think this kind of warning from the DOJ is going to scare a lot of these governors into opening their states much more quickly than they wanted.
The only amendment in the Bill of Rights that has not been incorporated is the Third Amendment.
Uh no. An emergency gives the president and the governors extra-constitutional powers to save lives, resolve the emergency and defend us.