This past weekend approximately 3,000 lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender activists descended upon Baltimore, Md., for a national advocacy conference, while a few miles away the Republican branch of Congress — which consistently resists pro-LGBT policies – gathered for a retreat. Despite an absent House (Democrats were also at a retreat in Cambridge, Md.), about 300 of those LGBT activists occupied the Capitol last Thursday for the first federal lobby day associated with the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s 24th annual Creating Change conference. The Senate was still in session.