diff --git a/doc/terminator.1 b/doc/terminator.1
index dbf1845f..bad1c2b6 100644
--- a/doc/terminator.1
+++ b/doc/terminator.1
@@ -33,6 +33,9 @@ Place the Terminator window in its fullscreen state when it starts
 Instruct the window manager not to render borders/decoration on the 
 Terminator window (good with \-m)
 .TP 
+.B \-\-no_gconf
+Ignore the gconf settings of gnome-terminal
+.TP 
 .B \-p, \-\-profile=PROFILE
 Loads the GNOME Terminal profile named PROFILE
 .TP 
diff --git a/terminator b/terminator
index d367a07d..ff145e9e 100755
--- a/terminator
+++ b/terminator
@@ -87,6 +87,7 @@ if __name__ == '__main__':
   parser.add_option ("-m", "--maximise", action="store_true", dest="maximise", help="Open the %s window maximised"%APP_NAME.capitalize())
   parser.add_option ("-f", "--fullscreen", action="store_true", dest="fullscreen", help="Set the window into fullscreen mode")
   parser.add_option ("-b", "--borderless", action="store_true", dest="borderless", help="Turn off the window's borders")
+  parser.add_option ("--no-gconf", dest="no_gconf", action="store_true", help="ignore gnome-terminal gconf settings")
   parser.add_option ("-p", "--profile", dest="profile", action="callback", callback=profile_cb, help="Specify a GNOME Terminal profile to emulate")
   parser.add_option ("-e", "--command", dest="command", help="Execute the argument to this option inside the terminal")
   parser.add_option ("-x", "--execute", dest="execute", action="callback", callback=execute_cb, help="Execute the remainder of the command line inside the terminal")
@@ -94,6 +95,9 @@ if __name__ == '__main__':
   (options, args) = parser.parse_args ()
   if len (args) != 0:
     parser.error("Expecting zero additional arguments, found: %d"%len (args))
+    
+  if options.no_gconf and options.profile:
+      parser.error("using --no-gconf and defining a profile at the same time does not make sense")
 
   if options.version:
     print "%s %s"%(APP_NAME, APP_VERSION)
@@ -136,7 +140,7 @@ See the following bug report for more details:
       pass
 
   dbg ('profile_cb: settled on profile: "%s"'%options.profile)
-  term = Terminator (options.profile, command, options.fullscreen, options.maximise, options.borderless)
+  term = Terminator (options.profile, command, options.fullscreen, options.maximise, options.borderless, options.no_gconf)
 
   gtk.main ()
 
diff --git a/terminatorlib/terminator.py b/terminatorlib/terminator.py
index 81e7303f..274d61ea 100755
--- a/terminatorlib/terminator.py
+++ b/terminatorlib/terminator.py
@@ -81,7 +81,7 @@ class TerminatorNotebookTabLabel(gtk.HBox):
     return self._label.get_text()
 
 class Terminator:
-  def __init__ (self, profile = None, command = None, fullscreen = False, maximise = False, borderless = False):
+  def __init__ (self, profile = None, command = None, fullscreen = False, maximise = False, borderless = False, no_gconf=False):
     self.profile = profile
     self.command = command
 
@@ -93,21 +93,22 @@ class Terminator:
     stores = []
     stores.append (config.TerminatorConfValuestoreRC ())
 
-    try:
-      import gconf
-      if self.profile:
-        self.profile = gconf.escape_key (self.profile, -1)
-      store = config.TerminatorConfValuestoreGConf (self.profile)
-      store.set_reconfigure_callback (self.reconfigure_vtes)
-      dbg ('Terminator__init__: comparing %s and %s'%(self.profile, store.profile.split ('/').pop ()))
-      if self.profile == store.profile.split ('/').pop ():
-        # If we have been given a profile, and we loaded it, we should be higher priority than RC
-        dbg ('Terminator__init__: placing GConf before RC')
-        stores.insert (0, store)
-      else:
-        stores.append (store)
-    except:
-      pass
+    if not no_gconf:
+      try:
+        import gconf
+        if self.profile:
+          self.profile = gconf.escape_key (self.profile, -1)
+        store = config.TerminatorConfValuestoreGConf (self.profile)
+        store.set_reconfigure_callback (self.reconfigure_vtes)
+        dbg ('Terminator__init__: comparing %s and %s'%(self.profile, store.profile.split ('/').pop ()))
+        if self.profile == store.profile.split ('/').pop ():
+          # If we have been given a profile, and we loaded it, we should be higher priority than RC
+          dbg ('Terminator__init__: placing GConf before RC')
+          stores.insert (0, store)
+        else:
+          stores.append (store)
+      except:
+        pass
 
     self.conf = config.TerminatorConfig (stores)