Why does a new terminal window open when I launch gedit from the command line?

I am used to using linux command line (bash) and am learning how it works on Mac OS X Mavericks 10.9.2. I have installed the program gedit for my personal preference as a text editor, and I discovered something strange: if I run the command that if I run my command

open /Applications/Gedit.app/Contents/MacOS/gedit

However, when I run the mac's similar program TextEdit by typing

open -a TextEdit

I am reading all around online to understand why this happens and if I can prevent or change this behavior, but I am having problems understanding why this is happening. I noticed that the title bar text is referencing gconfd, which I know is used by gedit to display with gnome. Does anyone know if I can disable this? Thank you.