How about a bit of code to strip out the markup?
Something like this:

Public Function FormatStr(ByVal MessageString As String) As String
        MessageString = Replace(MessageString, Chr(13), "")
        MessageString = Replace(MessageString, Chr(10) & Chr(10), "</p><p>")
        MessageString = Replace(MessageString, Chr(10), "<br />")
        FormatStr = MessageString
    End Function

FormatStr(Container.DataItem("message"))