Sears graduated with a bachelor's degree from the University of Louisville. He earned a law degree from the University of Louisville Louis D. Brandeis School of Law. Sears was raised in the Baptist church, but converted to Roman Catholicism in 1988 before marrying his wife, Paula.
Career
Government
Sears served as a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's office for western Kentucky. During his time as a federal prosecutor Sears served as staff executive director of the Attorney General's Commission on Pornography also known as the Meese Commission. This commission was established by Attorney GeneralWilliam French Smith at the direction of President Reagan in early 1985. The commission became popularly known as the Meese Commission after Edwin Meese III, Smith's successor, announced the names of its eleven members in May 1985. Although he was not a voting member, Sears was influential on the commission and vigorously supported strengthening anti-obscenity laws. Sears served as associate solicitor under SecretaryDonald Hodel at the Department of the Interior.
Alliance Defending Freedom
Sears led the Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian right legal advocacy group founded in 1994, for more than twenty years. Under his leadership, the ADF won a string of victories in lawsuits on behalf of the conservative Christian movement. By 2014, the ADF had an annual budget of $40 million and more than 40 staff attorneys, and had "emerged as the largest legal force of the religious right, arguing hundreds of pro bono cases across the country." Sears retired as ADF's president and CEO in 2017. In June 2017, Sears was named a knight of the Papal Order of St. Gregory.
Writing
''The ACLU vs. America''
In 2005, Sears wrote the book The ACLU vs. America with Craig Osten. During an interview for Front Page Magazine, Sears said, "...Bill O'Reilly asked me: 'Mr. Sears, isn't the ACLU an organization that had noble beginnings, but just went off track over the past ten years or so?' Of course, there was not enough time to answer that question in a 'sound bite,' so I decided right then and there that we would have to write a book to provide an adequate response – that the ACLU had a VERY different vision right from the start for America than our nation's founders. Craig Osten and I saw how the organization looked 'one way from a distance but yet another way up close' so we decided to tell the real story about the ACLU, its founder Roger Baldwin, its ultra-radical roots, its promotion of socialism, and its extreme positions that few Americans know about."
''The Homosexual Agenda''
This 2003 book was described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as "an anti-LGBT call to arms that links homosexuality to pedophilia and other 'disordered sexual behavior.'" The book was accused of claiming that allowing same-sex marriage was a part of a secret agenda by activists to “lead young men and women into homosexual behavior” and trap them in a homosexual lifestyle. The book also accused gay-rights advocates as trying to create a nation of “broken families and broken lives.”
