They may not even know or realize what it symbolizes to you...

In late 2003, my partner and I were in VCE on the first leg of three weeks in Italy. He exclaimed, "Man, look how many gay people live here!" I looked up to see rainbow flags hanging from many of the windows. Upon closer inspection, they had the word "PACE" across them as well (but somewhat faded with time). PACE (pronounced PAH-cheh in Italian) is the word for PEACE and the flags demonstrated a political coalition opposed to the Iraq War. We saw much of the same elsewhere in Italy.