By Hugh McIntyre on March 8, 2022 @popbanghugh

The year 2022 is only just beginning, but already it’s been a tough one for Dua Lipa. The pop singer has just been hit with her second lawsuit in as many weeks, with both claiming she stole melodies from other songs to create one of her most popular singles.

This time around, songwriters L. Russell Brown and Sandy Linzer have launched a legal fight against the singer, suggesting she took part of two songs they wrote — 1979’s  “Wiggle and Giggle All Night” by Cory Day and 1980’s “Don Diablo” by Miguel Bosé, in order to create her global smash “Levitating.” While neither of the earlier tunes were huge hits in the U.S., they did reach an audience globally during their heyday.

The songwriters claim that the first few seconds of the three songs sound very similar, and that is very important these days. Since attention spans are very short, the intro and opening lines are often what grab people and keep them listening. “Levitating” found many fans on TikTok, which encourages instant catchiness, and thus the argument that only a few seconds matter carries some weight.

According to The Hollywood Reporter , which quoted the lawsuit, the lawyers who drafted the argument had some fun with the wording, incorporating both the name of Lipa’s hit and the ones written by their clients.

“Defendants have levitated away plaintiffs’ intellectual property,” they wrote, adding, “Plaintiffs bring suit so that defendants cannot wiggle out of their willful infringement.” The complaint also quotes Lipa in interviews surrounding her most recent era, when she said she was inspired by songs from years past, and that she aimed to emulate what others had done. 

Songwriters L. Russell Brown and Sandy Linzer are the second group to sue Lipa over “Levitating” alone. Just last week , Florida-based Artikal Sound System also lobbed a legal complaint against the Grammy-winning pop singer over the same tune, claiming it is essentially a soundalike of their track “Live Your Life.” That case is likely just beginning.

“Levitating” was one of the standout hit singles from Lipa’s Future Nostalgia album, which she is currently touring across the U.S. The smash rose all the way to No. 2 on the Hot 100 in America, becoming her second hit from the full-length to fail to reach the summit by one frustrating rung (following “Don’t Stop Now”).

The song was also mired in some controversy last year when DaBaby, who was featured on the radio-ready single version of “Levitating,” made some highly derogatory remarks. While on stage at a concert, the rapper, seemingly unprovoked, said, “[If] you didn’t show up today with HIV/AIDS, or any of them deadly sexually transmitted diseases that’ll make you die in two to three weeks, then put a cellphone light in the air…. Fellas, if you ain’t sucking dick in the parking lot, put a cellphone light in the air.”

The resulting condemnation was swift, and even Lipa got in on it. His verse was removed from the song, which continued to perform well on the charts long after DaBaby was no longer involved.

Cory Day – “A Wiggle And A Giggle All Night”

By John Riley on September 1, 2022 @JRileyRP

The Indiana Supreme Court has ruled that the Archdiocese of Indianapolis can fire Catholic school teachers who enter same-sex marriages or don't live by Church teachings in their personal lives.

In a unanimous ruling issued on Wednesday, the court found that Cathedral High School was within its rights when, at the direction of the archdiocese, it fired Joshua Payne-Elliott, who had taught social studies and world languages at the school from 2006 to 2019, after it was discovered he had married another man, contradicting the Catholic Church's opposition to same-sex marriage.

In its ruling, the court found that religiously-affiliated institutions, including schools, are protected by the doctrine of church autonomy under the First Amendment.

By John Riley on August 31, 2022 @JRileyRP

A regional court covering nine different Caribbean nations and territories has struck down a colonial-era law in Saint Kitts and Nevis criminalizing same-sex relations between consenting adults.

The Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court ruled that two portions of the dual-island nation's "Offences Against the Person Act," first passed in 1873, were unconstitutional, finding that sexual orientation and same-sex intimacy are covered by the right to privacy.

Under the Victorian-era law, a person could be imprisoned for up to 10 years for having or attempting to have gay sex.

In a demonstration of how strong anti-gay sentiment still remains in the region, while the original law, which has rarely been invoked, only penalized people for four years, lawmakers amended the law in 2012 to increase the penalty to 10 years, adding the possibility of hard labor to any sentence.

By John Riley on September 12, 2022 @JRileyRP

Three transgender students in Oklahoma are suing state education officials and the state's attorney general over a law passed earlier this year that requires transgender youth to use only those restroom and changing facilities that match their assigned sex at birth.

In the lawsuit, filed last week in federal court by Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the ACLU of Oklahoma, the students claim that the law, which was signed into effect by Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt in May, violates their right to equal protection under the U.S. Constitution, and discriminates against them on the basis of sex, gender identity, and transgender status, in violation of Title VII of the Education Amendments of 1972.

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