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"Free -- Our -- People," Kyle Glozier with the metallic voice of his speech synthesizer
Thursday, August 17, 2000
By Joe Smydo, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Unlike other speakers at the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, Kyle Glozier did not deliver what his father called an "I love Al Gore, I love the Democratic Party" speech yesterday.
Kyle, 14, a Greene County resident with cerebral palsy, has been a disability rights activist most of his life. Granted 7 1/2 minutes on the convention floor, Kyle used the time to coax and browbeat the people who shape Democratic Party policy.
"Free -- Our -- People," Kyle demanded, his thoughts relayed to the crowd by the metallic voice of his speech synthesizer.
Kyle invoked the mantra of a national disability rights group called ADAPT, which is fighting to make in-home care a federal entitlement for people with disabilities. Only then, ADAPT says, will people with disabilities be free to live where and how they choose.
Currently, states offer a hodgepodge of "attendant care" programs that serve segments of the disability community, said John Lorence, civil rights specialist with Tri-County Partnership for Independent Living, an ADAPT chapter in Washington County. ADAPT stands for "American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today."
In some cases, states provide in-home services to people with certain disabilities; other programs exclude children or limit the amount that can be spent on in-home care, regardless of the severity of a person's disability, Lorence said. Because of inadequate programs, he said, disabled people sometimes are forced into institutions when they would live happier lives in their own homes.
"That, in my view, is discriminatory," Lorence said.
Accompanied by his parents, Jim and Laura Glozier, Kyle has traveled the country to participate in ADAPT protests at government buildings and the offices of leading politicians, Democrats and Republicans alike.
Kyle glides his power wheelchair through streets and over sidewalks alongside big-name activists like ADAPT leader Mike Auberger of Denver. Some view Kyle as Auberger's protege.
"He's a future leader in the disability rights movement," Jim Glozier said of his son, who once threatened to lead a protest at school because the stadium bleachers weren't wheelchair accessible. School officials modified the bleachers, and Kyle attends the football games, Lorence said.
"It ended rather positively," Lorence said.
When actor and hotel owner Clint Eastwood told a congressional panel in May that portions of the 10-year-old Americans with Disabilities Act are too burdensome for businesses, Kyle presented the other point of view, testifying for the disability community.
Eastwood tried to make nice with Kyle. But Kyle yelled at him and slapped his hand away, Jim Glozier said.
In 1997, Kyle was among ADAPT members who gathered in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol and refused to leave until Newt Gingrich, then speaker of the House, agreed to introduce the Medicaid Community Attendant Services Act. The bill died at the end of the 105th Congress; it was re-introduced this term by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, but passage is far from certain.
Kyle also was present two months ago when ADAPT members protested at the Old Executive Office Building, where Vice President Al Gore has his offices. At that protest, Jim Glozier said, ADAPT won Gore's promise to let one of its member speak at the convention.
The honor fell to Kyle, who's entering his freshman year at West Greene High School. Kyle wrote the speech on his synthesizer, his mother edited it, and Kyle delivered his remarks sentence-by-sentence by punching the keys on the machine, a brand known as the Liberator.
Kyle was unfazed by convention pageantry. "I have gone to a lot of conferences," he said through his mother.
Jim Glozier isn't big on the pomp, either, saying his family enjoyed hanging out with convention protesters. The protesters, he said, are "more our people."
The convention has kindled Kyle's interest in politics. He even speaks of becoming the nation's second president with a physical disability.
"But he's not going to hide his," Jim Glozier said, referring to the secrecy surrounding Franklin Delano Roosevelt's disability, caused by polio.
Kyle Glozier (Ron Edmonds, Associated Press) 
Democratic convention
at Election 2000.