Problem parsing xml link with _GET parameters.

I tried using the following to produce xml output like the
hypothetical example...

<?php
echo '<link>www.domain.com/index.php?A=1&B=2&C=3</link>';
?>

 but I found I had to substitute HTML character code like the
following to prevent xml errors...

<?php
echo '<link>www.domain.com/index.php?A#61;1&#38;B&#61;2&#38;C&#61;3</link>';
?>

Once that was accomplished I then tried to parse the above xml line with Smarty.
I expected something like...

<a href="http://www.domain.com/index.php?A=1&B=2&C=3">LINK</a>


However, when Smarty parses the file, the output is:

<a href="http://www.domain.com/index.php?A">LINK</a>
<a href="http://=">LINK</a>
<a href="http://1">LINK</a>
<a href="http://&">LINK</a>
<a href="http://B">LINK</a>
<a href="http://=">LINK</a>
<a href="http://2">LINK</a>
<a href="http://&">LINK</a>
<a href="http://C">LINK</a>
<a href="http://=">LINK</a>
<a href="http://3">LINK</a>

Smarty Parsing Functions:

function startContact($parser, $name, $attribs){
  global $currentTag, $currentAttribs, $contact, $page;
  $currentTag = $name;
  $currentAttribs = $attribs;
    switch ($name) {
      case "link";
      $contact .= "";
      break;
    }
  return $contact;
}

function endContact($parser, $name){
  global $currentTag, $contact, $page;
    switch ($name) {
      case "link";
      $contact .= "";
      break;
    }
  $currentTag = "";
  $currentAttribs = "";
  return $contact;
}

function dataContact($parser, $data){
  global $currentTag, $contact, $page;
   switch ($currentTag) {
     case "link";
     $contact .= "<a href=\"http://".$data."\">LINK</a>";
     break;
   }
   return $contact;
}

Has anyone experienced this problem?  How should I correct for it?