Fredrick Clarkson of Talk To Action writes about Rev. Wiley Drake, a prominent Baptist leader who has issued "imprecatory prayers" against his critics and called upon other conservative evangelicals to do the same. An imprecatory prayer is more or less a curse, basically asking God to cause someone else to die or suffer a horrendous, perhaps unspecified, circumstance. That circumstance might be something as much directly affecting second parties, too. For instance, cursing a person by praying that that person's children will be childless.
Drake's subject of his imprecatory prayers were Americans United for Separation of Church and State and several members of it staff, which he named in an e-mail
Additionally, Fred points out on dKos, that fatwas (religious rulings in Islam) are quite different from imprecatory prayers
Imprecatory prayers are used [a lot] by the far religious right in the U.S., particularly against abortion providers, and even justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. It might sound pedandtic, but actually [it's] not. Imprecatory prayer is a real and important thing out there, and we ought to understand it for what it is, rather that jumping to the notorious analogy [of referring to such prayers as fatwas].
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