HTML Line Break Breaks Editor

I have an administration area on my site in which users can create and edit messages. The issue I'm having is that when a user trys to edit a message, if the underlying code has a line break (<br />), the editor will not show up. Here is the code that sets up the editor:

<script type="text/javascript">
   var oFCKeditor = new FCKeditor('cta_body');
   oFCKeditor.BasePath = "fckeditor/";
   oFCKeditor.Value = '<%=ls_body%>';
   oFCKeditor.Create();
</script>

where ls_body is my HTML code (ie: <p>this is <br />a test</p>). I'm not entirely sure if this is a bug with FCKEditor, or if it has something to do with how I'm grabbing body from the database or the form from which it was submitted. I'm using ASP JScript. When I retrieve the data from the posted form, I'm casting it as a String

ls_body = String(Request.Form("cta_body"))

I'm doing the same thing when grabbing it from the database

ls_body = String(ltr_i.Fields(0)))

I would really appreciate any help or ideas in how to resolve this. Thank you!