But now that the funeral is over, the fallout begins. The marriage equality lobby is determined to keep up the pressure, and even staunch opponents of same-sex marriage acknowledge the issue is not going to go away. So what now?

"We have no plans to take any other measures on this issue," Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said on Friday. And that may remain the most likely outcome.

Do nothing

The plebiscite battle has been long and bruising, especially for MPs who feel they have something personal at stake. Marriage equality supporters may have appeared to score a victory in knocking off the hated plebiscite, but internally the wounds of war are bleeding.

Warren Entsch, a long-time gay rights advocate in the Coalition, says he's "done" with the fight. He is bitterly disappointed that former allies in the gay community, such as veteran campaigner Rodney Croome, turned against the plebiscite and, in his view, shacked up with the Labor Party.

"I've spent 10 years on these issues and in some ways my whole bloody job has been defined by my advocacy in this area," says Entsch. "For my side of politics, I reckon we got it to the point where it was ready to go."

He believes there is too much fatigue, both inside and outside the party, for the issue to be revisited before the next election. "People are sick of it, people are over it," he says.

On that point he is in agreement with conservatives such as Victorian Liberal MP Michael Sukkar. "I think what we want to do is focus on the main agenda and we'll revisit this probably six months out from the next election," Sukkar says.

If at first you don't succeed …

Try and try again. The plebiscite might be dead, buried and cremated but it could easily have a second life, amended or not, if the government keeps attempting to have it passed.

"Just because something gets knocked back doesn't mean you walk away from the policy," says Sukkar, citing the government's industrial relations bills as an example.

And Turnbull has definitely been willing to negotiate. Removal of public funding, making the result binding on MPs, conducting the ballot by post or electronically: all these changes were considered as the government tried to court a last-ditch potential saviour in Nick Xenophon.

"We had a lot of wriggle room there to move, to make it happen," says Entsch, who tried to broker the compromise. "I spoke to [the PM] about all of these things and everything was on the table for negotiation."

Even conservatives were happy with the compromises. Nationals MP Andrew Broad, who at one stage threatened to quit the party if it abandoned the plebiscite pledge, backed Entsch's proposal for a binding vote. "Broad actually went to the PM and said he would support it," says Entsch, who also got George Christensen on board.

And there's good reason conservatives want to rescue the plebiscite. With the numbers in Parliament now tipped in favour of change, a successful "no" campaign is the only way to kill off same-sex marriage for the long-term.

Opponents are also feeling emboldened by Trump's triumph in the US. Hot on the heels of the Brexit shock, it's a reminder that published polls are not necessarily a good predictor of how people will vote. For some, it's also a sign of a turning political tide.

"I think the narrative has been that the arc of history bends to the progressive course," says conservative Liberal MP Andrew Hastie. "Brexit and Trump repudiates that notion."

He also points out that the anti-SSM group Marriage Alliance uses the same campaign software as the "Leave" camp in Britain and Trump's team in the US. "Perhaps the message to come out of this whole thing is maybe there's been a disruption of the way we organise politically," Hastie says.

A free vote

This is the holy grail for the pro-equality side – an empowered Turnbull turns his back on the Abbott-era plebiscite and embraces what used to be his preferred option: a free vote for all MPs, which would certainly see the bill pass.

It would need to be agreed by the Liberal party room and even then would risk  a blow-up with the Nationals. Even advocates such as Croome, who led the charge against the plebiscite, concede a free vote is "unlikely" at the moment. "But that doesn't mean that it won't happen," he says. "These things can be turned around."

Croome says his forces will target voters in electorates held by Liberal same-sex marriage supporters "with the message that they can't go to the next election having done nothing". Alex Greenwich, chairman of Australian Marriage Equality, says his focus will also turn to members of the government who support reform.

"With the plebiscite behind us we have the clear air to have new discussions," he says. "I think there's a great number of MPs across the Parliament who don't want this to drag on and want it to be resolved."

Government sources said such a sentiment was prevalent among some ministers, who worry the issue will become debilitating and sap the government's ability to focus on its economic agenda. But the feeling is the dust will need to settle over the summer before any other plan can be considered.

Pull the trigger

Then there is the nuclear option: an insurgency of Liberal MPs crossing the floor to suspend standing orders and bring on Labor's marriage equality bill for debate.

This possibility should not be discounted, but it remains a distant and dangerous prospect. For starters, three MPs would be required to cross the floor in the lower house. Speculation naturally surrounds the openly gay Liberal MPs Trent Zimmerman, Tim Wilson and Trevor Evans, but there could be others.

The instigators would risk the stability of the government and their own standing among colleagues. They would also need to be sure they had the numbers in the Senate, where the big unknowns are Bob Day's replacement and the position of six Labor senators opposed to same-sex marriage. If they abstained, only one senator would be required to cross the floor – presumably Dean Smith, the gay WA Liberal who abstained from the plebiscite vote on Monday.

Entsch has ruled out crossing the floor and says he would "campaign actively" against any push to do so. "I've had no inkling of that happening," he says. "There's no way in the world we're going to go out there and give Bill Shorten credit for this."

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