When Margaret Clark first saw pictures on Facebook of the "straight pride" flag waving in the central New Brunswick village of Chipman, she felt as if she'd been kicked in the stomach.
"It's just like they created a time machine and they put us back 10 years," said Clark, who lives in Minto, about 50 kilometres east of Fredericton.
A little farther east of Minto, people had raised the straight pride flag next to the Chipman Marina, in the heart of the village.
The flag has since been taken down, on Monday afternoon, after being it up for almost 24 hours.
The flag of black and white horizontal lines promoting heterosexuality was raised by some conservative groups in the U.S. in response to gay pride events.
"To put up a straight pride flag is almost like putting up a swastika," Clark said. "It's scary in this day and age — it's 2018."
Clark called the flag a "symbol of hatred" and said it reminded her of when her son Chad Kelly, 34, was teased at Minto High School for being gay. In high school, he was even punched in the face for being gay and came home with a black eye.
In Grade 11, the teen was bullied so much that he moved to Prince Edward Island, where he finished high school. Clark said her son came out to her about two years later.
Today, he lives in Munich, Germany, with his husband and works as a client manager at Louis Vuitton. He has never returned to Minto, near Grand Lake.
"It represents hatred …. 'We're going to show them that us white, straight people are better,'" she said of the flag-raisers.
Justin Fudge is gay and has lived in Chipman for more than eight years.
On Sunday, he felt personally attacked by the straight pride flag that was raised in the community.
"We've push so hard to get the Pride flag raised in this little village, with a very small LGBTQ community and all of a sudden this atrocity is waving in the wind," said the local hair stylist.
Both Minto and Chipman are in a conservative provincial riding that recently sent the leader of the third-party People's Alliance to the legislature.
The flag's appearance in the village was the work of Glenn Bishop and 11 others, who met over the past few months to find ways to show support for straight people.
Bishop described the flag as an international sign of man and woman.
"We are not against the gay pride people at all," he said. "I'm not against gay people; anybody's sexual preference is their choice."
Bishop said he went to the mayor about two months ago and asked to fly the flag.
"He said, 'Sure we represent all groups of people,' and I agree with that," said Bishop.
Bishop said "the gay pride people" represent about five per cent of the population in the area, and straight people make up about 95 per cent.
According to Bishop, about 50 people attended the flag raising Sunday afternoon. Mayor Carson Atkinson was among them.
"He made a speech just implying we are an international town, we represent all groups of people, which we do," Bishop said.
"I don't understand. We never made no squawk when they flew their flag."
Although he has seen a lot of negative reaction on Facebook, Bishop said he expects other communities will start flying the flag.
"It's only a small percentage of them who are not happy about it and most of them are either people who … are either gay or if they have children who are gay," he said.
"That's why we're getting a little bit of negative response from this."
The flag was set to fly until Saturday, and Bishop was hoping the flag would be raised every year.
"There's no hate involved here," he said. "I'm not against gay people. I have many gay friends. I'm not against the gay people."