Unable to sanitize in customizer and escape in theme without removing ability for user to use "< br >" to insert a line break

I have been unable to figure out how I can properly sanitize (in the customizer) and escape (in the theme, while allowing the user to use “<” and “>” to insert a ‘< br >’ and add a line break wherever they want.

I have an area in my theme’s customizer that allows the user to put text in a text box, and it outputs to a main headline area of the site. It works fine, but it does not appear to really be outputting HTML even with the use of esc_html().

I have looked through the WordPress core sanitize functions for something I can use for the input in the customizer like:

• sanitize_email
• sanitize_html_class
• sanitize_key

And I have dug through the codex for ways to sanitize the output in the theme like:

• esc_html
• esc_attr

When using any of these I end up with the “< br >” being printed on the page, instead of it actually inserting a line break. The only way I have been able to make it behave like I want is to not sanitize it at all. If I don’t use a sanitize callback in the customizer, and I don’t escape the output at all, the user is able to put “< br >” in the text box and the browser will insert a line break instead of printing the “< br >”.

I thought maybe I could make a custom function. I went to wp-includes/formatting.php thinking I could copy and edit the sanitize_html_class function and found this:

function esc_html( $text ) {
$safe_text = wp_check_invalid_utf8( $text );
$safe_text = _wp_specialchars( $safe_text, ENT_QUOTES );
/**
 * Filter a string cleaned and escaped for output in HTML.
 *
 * Text passed to esc_html() is stripped of invalid or special characters
 * before output.
 *
 * @since 2.8.0
 *
 * @param string $safe_text The text after it has been escaped.
 * @param string $text      The text prior to being escaped.
 */
return apply_filters( 'esc_html', $safe_text, $text );}

I also found this:

function sanitize_html_class( $class, $fallback = '' ) {
//Strip out any % encoded octets
$sanitized = preg_replace( '|%[a-fA-F0-9][a-fA-F0-9]|', '', $class );

//Limit to A-Z,a-z,0-9,_,-
$sanitized = preg_replace( '/[^A-Za-z0-9_-]/', '', $sanitized );

if ( '' == $sanitized )
    $sanitized = $fallback;

/**
 * Filter a sanitized HTML class string.
 *
 * @since 2.8.0
 *
 * @param string $sanitized The sanitized HTML class.
 * @param string $class     HTML class before sanitization.
 * @param string $fallback  The fallback string.
 */
return apply_filters( 'sanitize_html_class', $sanitized, $class, $fallback );}

 /**
 * Converts lone & characters into `&` (a.k.a. `&`)
 *
 * @since 0.71
 *
 * @param string $content    String of characters to be converted.
 * @param string $deprecated Not used.
 * @return string Converted string.
 */
function convert_chars( $content, $deprecated = '' ) {
if ( ! empty( $deprecated ) ) {
    _deprecated_argument( __FUNCTION__, '0.71' );
}

if ( strpos( $content, '&' ) !== false ) {
    $content = preg_replace( '/&([^#])(?![a-z1-4]{1,8};)/i', '&$1', $content );
}

return $content;}

Is there a way I can rename and edit these to make a custom function that will allow me to use “<” and “>” like I can in HTML?

Should I be using wp_kses in the theme file instead of escaping?