Error displaying "edit-message" textarea

On the invitation page ("/invite"), the "From", "To", "Subject" fields display fine, but the "Message" field HTML looks like this:

<div class="invite-message"><div class="opening"><p>Your friend, {user}, has invited you to join {site}!
</p>
<p>To join, click the link below or paste it into the address bar of your browser.
</p>
<p>http://{url}/invite/accept/--invite-code--
</p>
<p>----------<br />

&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div class=&quot;form-item&quot; id=&quot;edit-message-wrapper&quot;&gt;
 &lt;textarea cols=&quot;60&quot; rows=&quot;5&quot; name=&quot;message&quot; id=&quot;edit-message&quot;  class=&quot;form-textarea resizable&quot;&gt;&lt;/textarea&gt;

 &lt;div class=&quot;description&quot;&gt;This message will be added to the mail sent to the person you are inviting.&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div class=&quot;closing&quot;&gt;&lt;p&gt;</p>
</div></div>

The "edit-message" textarea code is acting as though it has been passed through htmlspecialchars(). Any idea what might be causing this?

Thanks,
Austin