Disabled form fields not submitting data

Question

Is there any way (with a attribute flag or something like that) to enable form fields that are disabled to submit data?

Or, if that's not possible, is there any way to block fields from editing with css or any other attribute than disabled without hiding them?

My special case at the moment is an identifier for a data-set that should be shown in the form (uneditable) - if there is no better solution I think i'll use a hidden field in addition to the disabled one to hold the actual value with the disabled one showing it.