U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., spoke to a small crowd at a local coffee shop Friday afternoon about his conservative stances as part of his presidential campaign.

Burgie’s Expresso Cafe, 110 Airport Road, which hosted the senator, who reinstated his political stance as a true conservative fiscally, socially and economically.

“I’m a bleeding-heart conservative,” Brownback said.

During his approximately 10-minute speech, Brownback highlighted his stance on issues such as family, Iraq and religion in the public sector.

He emphasized his ideology on the issue of life and family and its importance to society.

“I believe all life is sacred. I believe it’s sacred in the womb and I believe it’s sacred after,” he said. “I think we have to get the family structure back.”

Brownback said a child could be brought up without both a mother and father but “the odds tend to be against you.”

“I’ve pushed welfare reform of the next step up. Step one was to get people back to work. Step two, mainly, is to encourage people to get married and form families,” he said

Brownback, who is a practicing Catholic, said there should be some room for faith in public.

“I think we should have a robust public square for the worship of faith. Separation of church and state doesn’t mean the removal of [religion] from the open square,” he said.

However, Brownback said he does not believe in a theocracy because it “would be bad for religion and bad for the government.”

On terrorism, Brownback said the U.S. would be involved in the war against it for a long time.

“We have allies in the Muslim world, and we have got to work together to contain this,” he said.

He said he supports continued U.S. involvement in Iraq, but would make the Iraqi army step up its participation more.

Under Brownback’s plan, U.S. troops would stay in Iraq, but with an increased Iraqi force, U.S. troops would be pulled back from the front lines. He said he supports forming Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish states with a weak Iraqi federation.

Brownback said that the political situation in Iraq has become inadequate and it was time to move farther from the military solution.

“We don’t belong between the Sunni-Shiite problem. It’s not our fight and we’re not gonna solve it,” he said.

However, Brownback does not support any timeline for a withdrawal from Iraq.

He said the day that the U.S. decides on a pullout day would be the day al-Qaida declares victory.

When answering some questions from the small crowd, Brownback said he fully supports Israel.

“I think we should back Israel. They’ve been a key ally of ours and has been a key ally to most parts of the world,” he said.