GnuPG and standard output

[Robert J. Hansen]

GnuPG seems to insist on writing to a console, even where it's
unnecessary and counterproductive.  Consider the following Python code:

=====

#!/usr/bin/env python3

args = ["/usr/local/bin/gpg",
        "--edit-key",
        "0xb44427c7",
        "showpref",
        "quit"]
result = subprocess.run(args, stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
print("Got {} bytes output".format(len(result.stdout)))

=====

(If you're wondering why I'd do this, GPGME does not yet have a way to
query key prefs, and I need them for a project.)

There's no security reason to dump this to the console.  It's just
publicly-available information about the certificate.  And yet, it
consistently puts zero bytes in result.stdout, while displaying data to
the console.

What's the best way to get past this behavior?