I’m not completely onboard that it is a conservative position for government to be in the business of messing into social issues.
My brand of conservatism thinks the government should provide for the national defense, take care of federal highways and the like.
And if we took care of our fiscal house many of the social ills would cure themselves. It is the inability of one parent to stay home and raise their kids due to high taxes that is at the root of many social problems.
Justice is a Virtue-—and governments have to promote Justice—which means they have to promote morality. Justice is the Queen of Virtues.
As Socrates and all the Founders stated (and all geniuses until Marx)-—that all Republics have to promote public Virtue to remain Free. Without Virtue, there can be no freedom. Western Civ was great because of the Virtues promoted first by the Greek Masters and then the Stoics and then the Christian religion which created the Age of Reason and the Renaissance—it was so superior to all other systems.
So, government has to promote all the ideas in the Constitution—so children understand that we have Rights from God and all human beings have dignity and worth. Natural Rights from God. That is “social” issues. Prager’s point—is that you can never remove “social” from human beings. They are social animals-—Aristotle used the term Political-—but it means the same thing.
Since we have to deal with other humans in a “society”—we have to have a Code of Ethics-—ours was Christian Ethics. It has to be taught to all —so you don’t have chaos.
It is like having a Basketball game and thinking you can have the game—and have no “rules”. Won’t work-—human’s need to have the “Rules” of the game—set and not changed all the time. For economics-—you need society to be predictable in the long term—have trust (same ethical system). You need the Rules set—in stone is good when they are close to perfect in the first place, like Christian Ethics.
We could immediately lower some of our taxes if we would stop putting people in jail for personal use of marijuana and other substances. Since about half of all prisoners are in jail for crime of that type, we should also start releasing them. What difference does it make if we finance government prisons or outsource to the prison/industrial complex of private prisons. We end up paying for it either way. Personally, I have no desire to make some company rich for this kind of stupidity.
This is one example of the very real difference between libertarian type thinking and other forms of conservatism.
And therein lies the problem, your brand doesn’t work.
The purpose of the government is to secure our unalienable rights - among these is life. Another is the child"s natural right to have a mother and a father. Marriage is a contract between mother, father, and fellow citizens. The purpose of which is to delegate the responsibility of protecting the child's right to the parents. It also allows the citizens to hold the parents responsible jointly, thereby financially protecting (protecting the property rights of) the citizenry in general.
Fiscal Conservatism is inseparable from social conservatism.