using sendmail, but not as a daemon

[nosaj <nosaj46_(_at_)_poczta_(_dot_)_onet_(_dot_)_pl>]

Hi,
I am having some trouble sending my mail. I do not
wish to run sendmail as a daemon, but just have
Mutt pass my mail to sendmail to be delivered as
required. When I try to send a message my maillog
records:

Dec 5 10:24:03 <MY HOST> sendmail[1205]:
  fB5AO3DW001205: from=<ME>, size=6, class=0,
  nrcpts=1, msgid=<200112051024.fBA03Dxxxx>,
  relay=<ME>@localhost
<info repeats, then:>
 to=root, ctladdr=<ME>, delay=00:00:00,
 xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=relay, pri=30022,
 relay=localhost[127.0.0.1], dsn=4.0.0,
 stat=Deferred: Connection refused by localhost.

The email makes it to /var/spool/clientqueue,
but no further. The problem is NOT pf.

As an experiment I tried to run sendmail as a
daemon, using the sendmail_flags="-L sm-mta
-C/etc/mail/xxxx -bd -q30" flags and when I boot I
get:

Dec 5 10:19:51 <HOST> sm-mta[13343]: NOQUEUE:
  SYSERR(root): opendaemonsocket: daemon MTA6:
  can't create server SMTP Socket: Protocol not
  supported
<then further:>
  daemonMTA6: optional socket disabled
  	    : problem creating SMTP socket
	    : SMTP socket wedged: exiting

And then it does <exit!> Sendmail has stopped
running. 

I can run sendmail OK without the -Cxxxx option,
but I still get some error messages when I boot.
My aliases are OK, as are my permissions. I can
fetch my mail no problems using Mutt. 

If anyone has some thoughts on how to resolve this
I would be very, very grateful.

<nosaj46_(_at_)_poczta_(_dot_)_onet_(_dot_)_pl>