Richard says he doesn’t hate gay people, but he does consider himself homophobic and doesn’t like it when people are “doing too much”--like Sasha wearing a skirt. While we don’t know if this is what motivated Richard to start the fire, Richard’s words imply that this might be a hate crime. Hate crimes are motivated by prejudice--victims are targeted because of their identity or social group, like their gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexuality--and are punished more harshly than other crimes.
