What do you think are the big failures of the American Democrats? Or the American left, more generally?

The American left's agenda is nowhere right now. It's reactionary/opportunist, and it's best represented in the fact that guys like Sharpton still have political viability when they say the right thing at the right time.

The NY mayor’s race in 2001 best illustrates this problem: You had a Hispanic candidate, a Bronx boy, who loses to Mark Green with the white voters, because he was willing to talk with Sharpton. Then Green loses to Bloomberg because not enough black NYers would vote for a mayor who wouldn't talk to Sharpton.

Bloomberg, meanwhile, is himself a former Democrat who goes on the Republican ticket just to oppose these guys. When things like that happen, you've got to wonder whether being a Democrat really can mean any one thing anymore, or whether it's a series of reactions and strategies of opposition.

I actually voted for Nader in 2000, because I thought that the guy was talking from his heart and had smart ideas. In the years since, I realized how stupid I was, though with my heart in the right place: the Green Party has, as far as I can tell, no representation in Congress besides Bernie Sanders, who still runs as a Democrat, and hasn't built up statewide offices. So, how the fuck can they expect to advance an agenda at the national level? That campaign to me was about IDEALS, all reactions,signs, and symbols, musicians like Vedder and Patti Smith, poets, and artists without
political clout, pragmatism, or a concrete plan.

…we're not all that bad, but clearly we've failed in our campaigns of the last 6 years. Bush's party won overwhelmingly again in 2000 and 2002, even though we protested his party, platforms and the theft of the election. We're not doing our job.

Do you consider yourself morally conservative? Is this different from people you
work with, or people with similar political views?

"Do I consider myself morally conservative?" is a far more interesting question than "AM I morally conservative?" it's much easier to say where I stand as a "conservative," or "progressive" politically, than morally. If a moral conservative would expect people to have more control over themselves, exercise greater personal responsibility, discipline, that'd be me. However, does a moral "conservative" believe in hitting back at one's enemies, as political conservatives often do, or do they believe in self-control? It's a tough question.

I think I'm personally pro-life and pro-self defense, and politically pro-choice and anti-handgun. Does that make me morally conservative, maybe hypocritical? I can tell you that many people who share my politics are less religious than I am, and in some ways that puts me on the morally conservative edge. At the same time, I'm pretty progressive for a Catholic, so it's hard to judge.

The biggest difference between a moral conservative and a morally liberal or progressive person is whether they stop to ask the question "Who are you to judge?" in the course of examining the behaviors of people around them, whether they remember Jesus' words about the one who is WITHOUT SIN being the one to cast stones. I could never be the church's "sexual justice" minister, only its "social justice" minister, because I disagree with many Catholic attitudes around sex and sexuality.

For one thing, I know that I'm bisexual, though not actively so, and so many of the judgments conservative Christians make about homosexuals I feel are misguided though I think I felt that even when I was 100% straight.) For another, I think pre-marital sex is not immoral if done with someone you love, and that condoms should be used if you want to avoid childbirth. The church is totally against me on both counts. Here's an area where I'm definitely not a "moral conservative," though again we're talking about how I believe OTHERS should be free to act, not how I conduct
my own life.

I'm in the middle camp of trying to avoid certain things, and trying at the same time to accept and learn from those who go the other way, whether it be alcoholics, addicts, people who indulge in promiscuity, homosexuals, convicts, et cetera.

At what point do you think your religious ideas are now? I feel like a lot of teenagers-20 somethings that are religious are in somewhat of a lust phase - really idealistic about the rightness and validity of their religion. Do you feel as impassioned as always about your belief?

The lust phase, huh? I don't feel as impassioned about Christianity as I know I was back in the summer of 1998. I had been to this Bible Camp at the start of that summer, that I entered with reluctance and completed with gratitude. It was great, and I began reading passages of the New Testament on the front porch with my coffee in the mornings before my summer job. That was great. Since joining the church as an employee, strangely enough, it's been more of a struggle to have the same passion in my faith.

I seem to spend so much more time doing damage control and planning than I am doing group prayer or really exciting Bible work, or faith sharing that is genuine, not mandatory as it often is in our staff meetings, that my faith has "dipped" a bit. There's this feeling of utter relaxation that I have gotten in the past from three things: the voice of Bob Ross (the Joy of Painting) while I lie at home, the voice of Garrison Keillor (Prairie Home Companion) as I drive at night, or a good morning prayer service. Just a feeling of utter relaxation, my whole body in peace, my eyes closed, feeling the tingle of the hairs on the back of my neck, and I believe that's what I call a state of grace. I'm searching for that these days, and given the often fragmented and unfocused nature of my job, true grace can be hard to find.

What do you want to do next?

Specifically? It'll probably be grad school after this job, either for film studies or maybe journalism. Generally? Be a light: I heard one morning the Fordham University graduation speech in which a guy said something akin to "There is a difference between violence and strength, between sex and passion, and between money and wealth. Be a light." I'd like to do that.

More information on the ministry and activist organizations of St. Charles can be found at www.stcharleschurch.org. you can also get in contact with Dan via this web address.

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