Some gathered at the Capitol rotunda, others went downtown to the YWCA, but wherever they went, Martin Luther King's message of equality and justice wasn't far behind.

Helena joined the nation Monday in celebrating King's legacy. At the YWCA, volunteers with AmeriCorps remembered the slain civil rights leader with a Diversity Fair, welcoming a wide cross-section of the community to take part.

Across town, more than 100 people gathered in the Capitol rotunda, arguing, in often eloquent words, that King's fight for equality still rings true.

"I'm here as a Christian today, and as a Christian, I read the same Bible that Martin Luther King read," said Great Falls minister Ron Greene, speaking at the Capitol. "I'm also here as a minister to speak up for justice on behalf of all God's children."

Religion, Greene said, should be used to unite, not divide. But some religious leaders, he said, use religion to restrict the rights of others.

"All people are created in the image of God," he said. "As human beings, we have rights - not special rights - but basic human rights."

TJ Reynolds, a sophomore at Carroll College, believes the gay rights movement has everything to do with King and his message of social equality.

King, said Reynolds, created a model for activism that extends beyond issues of race.

"As a student, or in the workplace, the biggest hurdle is overcoming stereotypes," Reynolds said. "Gaining acceptance and tolerance is the biggest hurdle for gays in Montana."

Reynolds, along with Cathy Lauinger, a 22-year-old Carroll graduate, represented the school's Gay-Straight Alliance at the Diversity Fair.

The two said they hoped to see a day when sexual orientation is no longer used as a tool to discriminate.

Montana, they pointed out, joined 10 other states in November in passing a constitutional ban on gay marriage.

Before the rally, lawmakers introduced several bills aimed at gay and lesbian rights, including a civil unions bill and another that would add sexual orientation as a protected class under Montana's hate crimes law.

"We're all linked as people," said Karl Olson, director of PRIDE, a gay and lesbian advocacy group. "If someone is treated unfairly, it makes the entire community weaker."

Olson, who introduced the rally's speakers, said King's principles apply as much today as they did in 1963, when the civil rights leader delivered his "I have a dream" speech in Washington, D.C.

"Gays and lesbians should be included at the table of humanity," Olson said, quoting King's widow, Coretta Scott King, who has emerged as a gay-rights supporter. "We see ourselves as part of the large civil rights story being told across our country."

In 1963, the year King was arrested for demonstrating in Birmingham, Ala., 62 percent of Americans believed that blacks and whites should attend school together. Seventy-one percent of Northerners supported the move compared to 31 percent of Southerners.

That same year, Vivian Malone and James Hood, both African Americans, successfully registered at the University of Alabama despite conservative efforts to keep them out.

The Civil Rights movement realized different achievements for Native Americans in Montana.

Ten years after the April 4, 1968 assassination of King in Memphis, Tenn., congress passed the American Indian Religious Freedom Act, requiring federal agencies to analyze the impact of development on sites considered sacred by Native Americans.

It wasn't until 1990, however, that the federal government passed the Native American Repatriation Act. The law prohibited the excavation or removal of Indian artifacts from federal land without tribal support.

Denise Juneau, a board member of the Montana Human Rights Network, said today's Indian issues reach beyond the state's reservations, where unemployment rates linger at 70 percent.

Only 1 percent of state workers, she said, are American Indian.

"People who participate in the oppression of others, or who sit quietly by while others do the dirty work of oppression, ought to be called to task," Juneau said at the Capitol. "Humanity is the glue that holds us together, and it's that humanity that holds the key to our survival."

Others spoke out on disability, and the Helena Peace Seekers addressed a variety of social issues as well.

But it was the rights of gays and lesbians that took the front seat at many venues Monday.

To high school student Marci Jenson, diversity means accepting people for who they are, not what they look like or what they do in their private lives.

"I don't support what gays do, or condone it, but I don't hate them because of it," Jenson said. "There are people at school who are going to be rude to them because of who they are. But most people are totally cool about it."

Discrimination at one local high school, Jenson and her friends said, stems from religious intolerance more than anything else.

"The discrimination we see is a lot more about religion," said Brenna Kindrick. "A lot of people are judgmental."

"It just depends on who you're talking to," added Klara Lee.

Reporter Martin Kidston can be reached at 447-4086, or at mkidston@helenair.com.