How do you disable ActiveRecord escaping of newlines in text columns?

Question

What causes ActiveRecord to escape newlines in a text column? Is there a way to disable this behavior? (Illustrated below):

    >> TestModel
    => TestModelid: integer, value: text, created_at: datetime, updated_at: datetime

    # Create model instance with newline in text column "value"
    >> t = TestModel.create!(:value => "\n")
    +----+-------+-------------------------+-------------------------+
    | id | value | created_at              | updated_at              |
    +----+-------+-------------------------+-------------------------+
    | 3  | \n    | 2010-07-21 06:32:47 UTC | 2010-07-21 06:32:47 UTC |
    +----+-------+-------------------------+-------------------------+
    1 row in set
    >> t.value
    => "\\n"             # Newline is escaped?

    >> t.value = "\n"    # Set value back to newline
    => "\n"
    >> t.value
    => "\n"              # Value is not escaped (before save)
    >> t.changes
    => {"value"=>["\\n", "\n"]}
    >> t.save!
    => true
    >> t.reload
    >> t.value
    => "\\n"             # Value is escaped after a save?