T. PAUL - Governor Jesse Ventura, the wrestler turned politician, told Playboy magazine that organized religion is for ''weak-minded people'' and that the Navy's Tailhook sexual harassment scandal was ''much ado about nothing,'' Playboy said yesterday.
Ventura also said he believed President Kennedy was killed by the ''military-industrial complex'' because he opposed intervention in Vietnam.
Ventura, who has gained national influence in the Reform Party since he upset two veteran politicians in Minnesota's gubernatorial race last year, aired his views on a variety of subjects.
The interview, conducted over three days this summer with contributing editor Lawrence Grobel, appears in the November issue, which goes on sale Monday.
Ventura said legalizing prostitution should be considered but is an unpopular idea because of religion.
''Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers,'' the governor said. ''It tells people to go out and stick their noses in other people's business.''
The governor, a former Navy SEAL who spent time in Southeast Asia in the early 1970s, said he could not condone what happened during the Tailhook Association's conference in 1991, when female Navy officers were allegedly groped and fondled by aviators at a Las Vegas hotel. But he said he understood it.
''These are people who live on the razor's edge and defy death,'' he said. ''They're not going to consider grabbing a woman's breast or buttock a major situation. That's much ado about nothing.''
