Why is religion in the business of moral policing?

[Astonished]

I think it's because religion is big on families and their stability and whatever they moral police not to do they believe has some negative impact on families.

That's the official excuse, but even "family values" is a fulcrum of control for them. Ultimately, religious morality is all about keeping people in line with dogma and ideology. Claiming to want to "protect" families or children or whatever makes it sound high-concept, but at the end of the day it's still about control.

Societal morality does a fine job of protecting the vulnerable and facilitating societal units like families. God adds nothing to it other than a bunch of assertions that can't be substantiated.

Exactly; the 'family values' part sounds great and of course puts the fear into the parents who want to protect their kids, but put zero critical examination into it because of the conclusions they come to about it. All it really does is ensure that indoctrinating the next generation is a priority to parents and sets up the next generation after that to follow suit.

And it doesn't just add naked assertions, it adds skewed and questionable ideas about morality and reality, which is a net negative, not a useless neutral effect.