Conservatism never conserves anything because it is an incoherent position. If you accept insane dogmas as freedom, equality, democracy and the ideology of the Founding Fathers, you cannot argue against the last innovation of the Left, because these innovations are the logical consequence of these insane dogmas.
Cthulthu swims left because the Left finds an unprincipled exception to these foundational dogmas (let’s say «gays cannot get married»). (See about unprincipled exceptions here: http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/005864.html)
Then the Left justifies the abolishment of this exception in a logical way starting from these foundational dogmas. «Why can’t gays get married? Isn’t this against freedom? Isn’t this against equality?».
The logical answer of the Right should be: «Yes, it is against freedom and equality, because freedom and equality are completely imaginary and perverse fantasies.»
The answer of the conservatism is «No, the fact that gays cannot be married is not against freedom and equality because <insert convoluted explanation that uses some hidden fallacies and that 80% of people cannot even understand>». The reply of the Left is «of course, it is against freedom and equality». And the Left is right and everybody can see it.
So you have lost the debate before even engaging in it, because you have accepted the leftist dogmas so you cannot stop accepting the conclusions that derive from leftist dogmas.
Conservatives are only leftists with problems of anxiety. They want the revolution not to be that fast. They want to keep the revolution just at the point the revolution was when they were young.