Two gay seniors at George Washington University are working to remove the chaplain at George Washington’s Newman Center, because they are upset over the priest’s views on homosexuality and abortion.

Eric Owens of The Daily Caller has the details on the students’ response to the chaplain’s stances that are based on Catholic doctrine:

The seniors, Damian Legacy and Blake Bergen, have announced a coordinated campaign to rid the campus of the Roman Catholic priest, reports The GW Hatchet, the school’s independent student newspaper.

They also assert that 12 or more students have quit the Newman Center in recent years because they can’t tolerate Father Greg Shaffer’s ardent anti-gay – and, for the record, anti-abortion — beliefs.

Shaffer has worked for five years at George Washington’s Newman Center. He told the Hatchet that religion and unrestricted speech “play a vital role at a diverse university like GW.”

Legacy and Bergen say they are primarily upset about the counseling Shaffer offers. They say he urges students who have homosexual feelings to lead a life of celibacy.

Catholic Church doctrine maintains that homosexual desire isn’t a sin, but acting on that desire is, according to the website Catholic.com.

Legacy told the Hatchet that he spent considerable time at the Newman Center during his first two years at George Washington. He was an altar server at mass. He believed that he would become a Catholic priest after graduating.

All that changed, though, when Legacy told Shaffer that he and Bergen had entered a homosexual relationship. Shaffer allegedly charged Legacy with being immoral and lacking in faith.

“To have my faith leader view me that way, just because of one piece of the way that God made me, and to think that one part is responsible for the destruction of my human dignity, it just didn’t…I can’t even begin to describe the mental conflict that it creates,” Legacy told the Hatchet.

The two gay seniors are also unhappy about a blog post Shaffer authored back in May 2012, just after President Barack Obama publicly endorsed gay marriage.

“As Vatican II states, God is the author of marriage. He has defined marriage as between a man and a woman,” Shaffer then wrote. “Every single rational person knows that sexual relationships between persons of the same sex are unnatural and immoral. They know it in their hearts.”

The plan to oust Shaffer includes the creation of a video containing the statements of several students who have left GW’s Newman Center.