Some Alabama couples, many of them immigrants, are having to put their wedding plans on hold or leave the county to get a marriage license because some counties are refusing to issue them to applicants who don't provide a Social Security number. That's a concern for Roman Catholic clergy who are encouraging couples to marry - only to find out the government won't let them.

"We want people to get married that want to get married and that are ready to make a lifelong commitment to each other," said Deacon Adrian Straley, who works with the Hispanic ministry at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Tuscaloosa. "There has always been a harmony between civil and sacramental commitment bestowed by the church and we think they go together."

He believes the law makes no sense.

"To have people who are ready to be turned away by one of the necessary agencies is introducing a rupture in this," he said. "It only provides an additional reason for people to live together outside of formal marriage, which is something I would think that neither state nor church would want."

At the center of the issue is a decade-old Alabama law requiring anyone applying for a state license to provide a Social Security number. It was designed and passed as part of the Alabama Child Support Act of 1997 as to help the state collect child support in case a couple divorces, but officials have also started enforcing it as a way to keep illegal immigrants from marrying.

For years, the law was enforced when people applied for professional, occupational or commercial licenses, but not when couples applied for marriage licenses.

Tuscaloosa County only started requiring Social Security numbers for marriage licenses last year. In November, officials began requiring individuals to present the actual card, not just the number.

The law is being enforced selectively, however. Other counties and states will issue marriage licenses without Social Security numbers.

That is causing widespread confusion - and driving couples to other counties to get what they can't get in Tuscaloosa.

Her wedding dress is hanging in the closet, invitations have been sent, and preparations for making 500 tamales are under way.

Santa and Gelacio are getting married.

But their wedding plans hit a snag on Dec. 3 at 10:04 a.m., when the couple walked hand-in-hand into the Tuscaloosa County Courthouse to get a marriage license. Neither of them has a Social Security card.

For 40 minutes, Straley tried to figure out how the couple could get the needed license. Speaking on behalf of the couple, he offered up passports, tax ID numbers and birth certificates as proof of their identities. But without a Social Security number, the other documentation was useless.

A sign posted at the marriage license desk in the courthouse makes it clear: "Effective July 11, 2006 Social Security Numbers are required on all marriage licenses." It's also posted in Spanish.

The couple left, with Straley following, without the license.

"It's the law. Whatever the law says we have to follow," said Tuscaloosa Probate Judge Hardy McCollum when told of the incident a couple of weeks later. "I don't understand the necessity personally, but I don't decide what the law is and what the law is not. ... Our folks have a requirement to enforce the law and carry it out as it is."

McCollum said he didn't know why Tuscaloosa hadn't been enforcing the law for the nine years it had already been on the books.

"We probably got something from Montgomery," he said about the change in policy. "Somebody that made certain that we were collecting all the required information probably contacted us."

But Charles Kuck, president-elect of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, believes counties are enforcing the law for another, politically obvious reason. Those who are in the country illegally, or who are in the U.S. legally but do not have permission to work, are not issued Social Security cards.

"Clearly they are doing this as just another excuse to deny people legal rights in the United States because of immigration status," said Kuck, an Atlanta-based lawyer who said he had heard of Alabamians driving to Georgia to get married because of the restriction.

"To interpret it as they are interpreting is incorrect. You can't give a number you don't have. And there is a constitutional right to marry."

A few hours after being denied a marriage license in Tuscaloosa, Santa and Gelacio entered the probate office in Bibb County.

This time, they were met with a completely different reaction.

"There is a place on the form to put the Social Security number but you don't have to if you don't want to," said Bibb County Probate Judge Jerry Pow on Thursday. "Even when it's on the form, we blank it out so it's not readable to other people. ... But we will not refuse to sell the license if they don't have it."

Pow suspects that is one of the reasons he frequently sees Tuscaloosa residents, both citizens and non-citizens, come to Bibb County to get their marriage licenses.

"We're a little more accessible and flexible," he said.

Santa and Gelacio, who have been living in West Alabama for six years, have two children together, a 5-year-old son and an 8-month-old daughter. They left Mexico in 2001 and moved to Alabama. Santa was pregnant at the time, and while the couple's son was born a U.S. citizen, they are undocumented. For fear of being deported, they asked that only their first names be used in this article.

When asked why they moved to the United States, Gelacio said, "For a better life. For our children."

"Everybody says here in the States if you don't get ahead and do well you didn't try," Santa added. "It isn't like that in Mexico."

That Gelacio and Santa were denied a marriage license in one county but easily got one in another is not unique to Alabama. Similar stories of people being refused marriage licenses because they did not supply Social Security numbers have occurred throughout the country.

Besides Bibb, Jefferson and Chilton counties issue marriage licenses without requiring Social Security numbers, while Montgomery and Talladega counties do not.

Chilton County Probate Judge Bobby Martin, who is also president of the Alabama Probate Judges' Association, said the decision is left up to each probate judge.

To support his own position, Martin points to a 2004 state attorney general opinion that states, "A marriage license can be issued to an applicant who is not a United States citizen."

"Only citizens have Social Security numbers," Martin said, noting that even some citizens have refused to provide Social Security numbers because of the danger of identity theft. "Sometimes now we even have people refuse to give Social Security numbers, and you can't make them give them to you. ... We don't make people to do it, and I don't have anything concrete that tells me that I've got to require a Social Security number."

A call seeking clarification of the law from the state Attorney General's office was referred to the Alabama Probate Judges' Association.

Many of the state laws requiring Social Security numbers to get licenses are based on a federal law that, like Alabama's, has been on the books for a decade and was intended to make it easier to collect child support payments.

In Tennessee and Pennsylvania, the law has been used to prevent illegal immigrants from getting married.

Some cases challenging the requirement have made it to court, but Kuck said many more people don't file suit because they don't want to risk being deported.