diff --git a/happstack-fastcgi.cabal b/happstack-fastcgi.cabal
--- a/happstack-fastcgi.cabal
+++ b/happstack-fastcgi.cabal
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 Name: happstack-fastcgi
-Version: 0.1.3
+Version: 0.1.4
 Copyright: Tupil
 Maintainer: ce [at] tupil.com, eml [at] tupil.com
 License: BSD3
diff --git a/src/Happstack/Server/FastCGI.hs b/src/Happstack/Server/FastCGI.hs
--- a/src/Happstack/Server/FastCGI.hs
+++ b/src/Happstack/Server/FastCGI.hs
@@ -15,7 +15,6 @@
     ) 
     where
 
-import Codec.Binary.UTF8.String
 import Control.Applicative
 import Data.Char (toLower)
 import Data.List (isPrefixOf)
@@ -30,7 +29,6 @@
 import qualified Happstack.Server as H
 import qualified Network.CGI as CGI
 
-
 -- | Converts a Happstack ServerPartT to a CGI handling function.
 serverPartToCGI :: (ToMessage b) => ServerPartT IO b -> CGI CGIResult
 serverPartToCGI = convert . processRequest
@@ -79,7 +77,7 @@
 withDef x = maybe x id
 
 -- | Look up a String in the cgiVars, returning the empty string if the key is not present, also does UTF8 decoding
-str k v   = withDef "" (v ? k >>= return . decodeString)
+str k v   = withDef "" (v ? k)
 
 -- | Append if the list is not empty
 x ?: [] = []