The resounding outcome of the same-sex marriage survey reflects a pro-reform sentiment that cuts across party lines, with blue-ribbon Liberal seats such as Wentworth, Higgins, Kooyong, Goldstein and Warringah doing battle with the red-green Melbourne, Sydney, Grayndler and Melbourne Ports to record the nation’s highest “yes” vote.

In this respect, the result has a lot in common with the last occasion when Australians were given a direct vote on an issue: the 1999 republic referendum.

Then, as now, defenders of the status quo saw the reform push as an indulgence by metropolitan elites whose concerns were out of step with a vaguely defined mainstream Australia.

However, the same-sex marriage result is still more intriguing in the ways it has failed to play to the culture war script.

Even if regional Australia and white suburbia didn’t respond with quite the alacrity of inner-urban voters on either side of the party divide, it’s striking that “yes” majorities were recorded in all but a handful of the nation’s most recognisably conservative seats.

It’s also the case that the Yes coalition has a somewhat different complexion from what progressives might have hoped for.

With the exception of three seats in rural Queensland, the distinguishing characteristic of the 17 seats that voted “no” is their large non-English speaking populations.

This includes the entirety of western Sydney, reflecting strong opposition among urban Chinese, Vietnamese, Lebanese and Indian populations.

As illustrated by the results analysis tool on my blog, there was a certain tendency for Yes support to land higher in areas that were wealthier and better educated, and lower among concentrations of families with young children.

However, the variable that best predicted the pattern of results was the share of population identifying as “no religion” in last year’s census.

This is what squares the circle between western Sydney and the predominantly white regional electorates that recorded either “no” majorities or very narrow “yes” ones.

So while progressives have had heartening confirmation of what the polls had been telling them all along, there are plenty of ironies in the result for both sides to chew on.

For the left, the result illustrates the tensions that can develop between progressivism and multiculturalism — a familiar theme in the Netherlands, but one rarely so apparent in Australia.

On the other side of the fence, conservatives who have characterised the struggle as one between liberal permissiveness and “Judeo-Christian civilisation” may need to think again.