Almost all of the white nations that encapsulate the history, religion and values of Western civilisation have already provided for gay marriage. Australia is a very late starter. And most of those for whom the very notion of marriage between people of one sex was an oxymoron and an anathema seem to have been either devotees of other religions, particularly Islam and Buddhism, or followers of fringe fundamentalist American Christian sects, of an ideology owing little to mainstream Christianity. None are flag carriers of Western culture or civilisation.

No one should underestimate the size of the triumph of the "yes" vote in the "opinion poll" run at fabulous expense by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The result was the more decisive given the size of the turnout, almost matching what might have been achieved at a compulsory-voting election. Australians support same-sex marriage. Nor was the electorate demanding a new right hedged by a host of discriminatory caveats, as some of the losers now claim.

That said, the turnout for "no" was substantial and, in some places, particularly in some of Sydney's western suburbs, remarkable.

Figures as out of kilter as achieved in these electorates speak of considerable organisation and political skill. No doubt a good deal of that was injected by the Australian Christian Lobby and others involved in the "no" campaign. But something else was involved. The Christian Lobby's campaign did not move most Australians; indeed, if the opinion polls were accurate, the "no" campaign had no effect at all on most voters. A concerted and well-organised campaign signally failed to impress voters in many other electorates – including electorates with a good deal of demographic similarity with outer suburban seats.

The key differential, it appears, was the size of the population that was of non-Christian origin and, probably, of non-traditional Christian religions. More people of Middle Eastern and Asian backgrounds. On the other side of the equation, there was a definite correlation between a high "yes" vote and belonging to the trendy and Greenish inner suburbs but also, I suspect, with Anglo or European background, and high proportions of people identifying with no religion at all.

No doubt a good many conventional mainstream Christians voted "no" and, no doubt, the more likely that such people were regular attendees at church services, the (slightly) higher their propensity to do so. Likewise, it is probable that the more likely that such groups belonged to still fairly tribal ethnic groups, with strong and prominent religious leaders, the more likely that there was conservative solidarity. We already knew from polls that the older people were, the more likely they were to vote "no". And that, generally, the higher the socio-economic status and the better the level of education, the higher the propensity to vote "yes".

The distance between a Marrickville (or Newtown or Annandale) and Bankstown is not great in socio-economic terms.

In the federal electorate of Blaxland (centred on Bankstown), three in every four voters opposed legislating for same-sex marriage. Only about 15 kilometres away, in electorates such as Sydney and Grayndler, four in every five voters were voting "yes".

This is a divide on a social issue probably more profound than on any political issue in Australia since Federation. What it means is that, if a random person from Glebe met a random voter from Lidcombe, the chance that both voted "no" would be only one in eight, and only 22 per cent that they had both voted "yes". Australia-wide, the chance that two random voters had voted in the same way would be more than 50 per cent.

The right to an abortion may still, for some people, be as contentious as same-sex marriage. As with same-sex marriage, a clear majority support abortion on demand. For some, however, the issue can never be resolved by opinion polls or plebiscites, and it is still a potent, and vote-changing, matter. Yet it is unlikely that it has ever geographically divided Australians in the way that same-sex marriage seems to have done.

Some politicians and Sydney's Daily Telegraph sometimes talk of Sydney's west as though it were homogeneous and different from the rest of Australia. That is not so, although it contains areas with high concentrations of relatively recent migrants, many of whom, particularly Muslims, are more socially conservative than the more established population.

Although it is probable that the divide in opinions about matters such as same-sex marriage will be less strong among second and third generations of such Australians, it would be wrong and patronising to consider the chasm between first-generation folk and other Australians as a reflection of a still difficult transition into assimilation and full citizenship.

That said, it is far from clear that Christian conservatives can always readily make common cause with them. Both the political right, and mainstream social conservatives, tend to be more hostile to immigration, and refugees, than people of Asian and Middle Eastern background. A few fundamentalist preachers promote a bitter sectarian divide against non-Christians (particularly Muslims). Many conservative Christians are also overtly hostile to concepts of multiculturalism and pluralism, or the sort of rights-based regimes and anti-discrimination laws that have allowed ethnic affiliation and tribalism to persist.

It's a bit early for detailed studies of the patterns of voting, other than from the indications given in opinion polls. The ABS, or, it would say, its government masters, focused on the anonymity of voting, rather than on gathering much useful information. But a look at the way particular electorates voted allows me to posit that the overwhelming number of Roman Catholics and Anglicans and members of the Uniting church ignored the more conservative of their religious leaders. Many, indeed, seem to have done so with a relish similar to the way in which voters in once deeply Catholic Ireland repudiated, only a few years ago, a broken and corrupted church up to its neck, from the Vatican down, in the physical, psychic and sexual abuse of women and children.

The indications are that a high proportion of people who claim at least notional adherence to the tenets of mainstream Protestant religions paid little attention to those of their authority figures who urged, or implored, them to vote no.

This hardly surprises. First, sections of some churches, particularly the Uniting church, have long had progressive views on the role of women and on homosexuality. Second, many people of religious sensibilities have been ignoring supposedly central tenets of their religion, particularly on matters involving sexual manners and personal morality, for more than half a century. It was observed in about 1970, for example, that Catholic women were as likely to be using oral contraception as any other group in the population, and were as likely to have had an abortion. The rate at which people of Catholic background sexually cohabit outside marriage does not appear to differ from the population at large. Available statistics suggest that divorce rates among churchgoers, of any religion or sect, do not differ greatly from general averages for age. Some slight differences – for example, a somewhat lower rate of divorce among regular church-goers of mainstream (but not evangelical) religions – may well be accounted for if the true test was not formal divorce but separation.

We are all, of course, sinners, and there is nothing particularly odd about finding people who cannot live up to the high standards of behavior set by their religion. But in relation to attitudes or behaviour clearly at odds with the official and formal views of religions and their leaderships, it seems that more and more mainstream Christians and Jews no longer even accept traditional views as standards to which they aspire, even if they fail. (With some religions, given the decline in religious education and instruction, it is probable that an increasing number of such people are no longer even sure of the formal standards.)

For many of the religious groupings, however, the real problem is the declining moral authority of many of the religious leaders, the poor quality of leadership, and, probably, the generally declining relevance of religion in Australian society.

I doubt that the impassioned pleas of most (but not all) of the Catholic bishops moved many people of Catholic background, or persuaded others to change their view. Likewise with the intervention of Anglican bishops, particularly from Sydney. It may well be, indeed, that the size of the "yes" vote was actually increased (as it was with a similar poll in Ireland, not only by the record of these churches with both the incidence and cover-up of sexual abuse, but outrage about their continuing moralising on other, less important, matters).

This might have been a good reason for a somewhat lower than expected profile by most of the Catholic bishops, and the fact that some bishops, and other leaders, made it clear there was no absolute reason for Catholics to vote "no." The more career-minded bishops (and Australia has many) may have tallied up imagined brownie points in the Vatican; the more realistic would have wondered whether further evidence of the chasm between the leaders and the led was in their own, or the church's, interest. All the more so when, it was immediately clear, the mainstream campaign had been designed to protect the sacramental nature of their religious ceremonies of matrimony, rather than any civil-society registrations (as marriages) of unions between people.

Suggestions that the world would cave in, or society collapse, could hardly be made with great conviction, given that Australia has come late to the show, and that somehow Spain, Italy, Britain, Germany and France seem to have managed without any evidence of destruction of the family, marriage or public morality.

But if the defeat of the no-sayers marks a stage in their declining political influence and relevance, the the Australian Christian Lobby's leadership of the "no" campaign may mark a shift in power intended to be used for political power. The lobby has made few bones about its identification with the right of centre of Australian politics, and seldom hesitates to attack Labor or the Greens, so least for their want of zeal for searching out, prosecuting and punishing sinful or socialist behaviour. It is also clear that it has no time whatever for the Liberal Party's left, or moderates, and only contempt for Liberals who campaigned, in however key a manner, for a "yes" vote.

But if Tony Abbott has identified himself with the lobby's fortunes, it is far from clear that his interventions were helpful, or other than self-serving in his efforts to position himself as the logical leader of Australian conservatism. Abbott's instinctive views on social issues may be far closer to those of Christian fundamentalists than others, but his religious background and philosophy, and his general political instincts and ideology, differ from both the spirit and the letter of the more emotional, exceptionalist and often simplistic views of the more Protestant religions. That does not mean that there is not an intersection of interests, one that opportunists on both sides will exploit (and who is a greater or more shameless opportunist than Abbott?). But the problem of searching for moral common causes may be illustrated by the way that, over most of federation, the Catholic church (or, for that matter, Bob Santamaria's movement) found it difficult to associate with temperance advocates, people opposed to gambling, moral rearmament types, or the more dour, bossy, judgmental or obsessed ends of what was then the Methodist church. The American Christian right, the parent of much of the Australian Christian Lobby's philosophy and practice, has too many strange bedfellows to hold any sort of commanding position.

Down the track, however, the organisers who made that extra difference in getting 17 seats to vote "no" may be exploring ways of making use of the knack they have shown.

I'd not pay too much attention to the assertion that there are no lessons for the political parties in the outcome, or that even voters who got excited will soon subside into a torpor, and go back to voting Labor or Liberal as if nothing has changed. It has, but it is not yet clear how.

Jack Waterford is a former editor of The Canberra Times. jwaterfordcanberra@gmail.com