being vegetarian

For this Lent, I gave up meat. not just for Fridays like all Catholics but every day (even Sundays). I am strongly considering making this a permanent change to my diet. Yes, I want to become vegetarian. Ideally (ie, if I wasnt so lazy), I would take the next step and become vegan. And the reason is (and yes it's a little cliched) that I love animals. I do not want to cause animals pain or suffering for my benefit. Some time during my sophomore year, there was a showing of a documentary at my school that showed the conditions in which food producing animals live and die. I wont go into any detail, but it is terrible. I still have images burned into my mind. Immediately after watching this (this was a completely optional thing to go see), I did not want to eat meat. But my family is carnivorous, and, as I stated before, I can be rather lazy, so I gradually went back to being ok with eating meat. I was only able to do this by ignoring what I believe to be my conscience which says that this is wrong. I view eating meat as almost a social sin now. a problem that all of society is contributing to. Being called to be stewards of the earth and knowing how these animals are treated, I cant justify eating meat to myself.
Even before I had seen the video, I had observed and thought it strange how we can love and protect some animals, like dogs, being disgusted when other cultures eat dogs, but then go on and eat cows and pigs and chickens. why do dogs deserved to be respected more as God's creatures than these other animals? We even name the meat different from the animal for cows and pigs, I think trying to "de-animalize" them, or giving them a status below animal. And very few of us like to think about the details of preparing the meat. Even as a carnivore, I could have never been a butcher because it seems so violent. I suppose this is one way in which I want to act out my pacifism (if that isnt a contradiction).
As one of my friends (hi katie!) pointed out, there are vegetarians who want to push there beliefs on others. I'm not doing that. If you want my opinion or want to understand my beliefs, you can certainly ask me, but I will not (or at least try to not) judge anyone for a difference in beliefs (this is a principle applied to all differences in beliefs, ideally. but hey, guess what, I'm an idealistic kind of guy!)
a wonderful site that pretty well fully explains what im talking about can be found by clicking here.
so my goal (if one is needed) in becoming vegetarian is, first, just practically, to have my actions aligned with my conscience. and more broadly, i suppose there is a hope of a vegan society that would bring harmony in nature, or God's Creation. so i hope there is some sort of greater understanding of why I want to be vegetarian now. if not, feel free to question me further.