Real conservatives want smaller government. Real conservatives don't want to use the government to push through legislation covering some pet peeve just because they can. For example, I hate smoking. However, it would never cross my mind to use the power of government to ban other people from smoking or allowing smoking in their businesses. "Social Conservatives" (really just Southern Democrats captured by Nixon's Southern Strategy) see nothing wrong with using law to force their beliefs on others. Those folks are not Real Conservatives any more than are Radical Environmentalists.
Conservatism != Libertarianism .
Good Lord, there have been more straw men erected in this thread than you'd see in a drive through Iowa cornfields! I call "no fair"!
Just how many in the "christian right" want to establish a theocracy? 100, 200 people of the 24 million? It's pure hyperbole to say that a marriage definition or protecting the innocent equate to "forcing beliefs on others". By that definition, ANY law would qualify.