Source: www.dailymail.co.uk
By VALERIE EDWARDS FOR DAILYMAIL.COM and ASSOCIATED PRESS

A former Disney Channel actor charged with trying to have sex with a 13-year-old boy in Salt Lake City contends he can’t get a fair trial because the judge handling his case is biased against gay people.

An attorney for actor Stoney Westmoreland said in court documents filed last month that US District Judge Howard Nielson Jr is incapable of being impartial because he represented proponents of a gay marriage ban in California when he was a private attorney, according to the Deseret News.

Nielson argued then that being gay is a choice and people can become heterosexual via conversion therapy, defense attorney Wendy Lewis wrote in court documents.

The judge refuted the notion and denied Westmoreland’s request for him to recuse himself from the case.

He said views of his clients don’t represent his own opinions.

‘I can state categorically and unequivocally that I do not harbor any personal bias or prejudice concerning Mr. Westmoreland,’ Nielson wrote in his order denying the motion earlier this month.

Westmoreland was fired from his grandfather role on the made-in-Utah Disney Channel series ‘Andi Mack’ after his December arrest.

Police say Westmoreland, 49, communicated with an undercover officer on the app Grindr and was arrested after trying to meet the investigator who was posing as a 13-year-old teenager.