Religion is just a mechanic. For Star Wars you may find that using it for something other than religion may make more sense. In my mind the light side and dark side of the force makes more sense to be as tech tree splits (once you pick one tech option you cant choose the other). Or you may just have them associated to the civs so that its impossible to switch during the game. Or you could have 3 civic options in a new category, one dark side, one light side and a neutral option.
So what to use the religion mechanic for? What about using it to represent the different species that can move into cities. Star wars cities always seem so eclectic, so the religion spread could represent new species moving into the cities. These could give access to new units or building, etc.
Of course we would want to remove the block so that more than one "religion" can spread to a city naturally. And instead of missionaries you could have species immigrants that would spread their speicies to other cities. The functions of "holy cities" could remain the same, acting as a capital for that race.
If you did this I wouldn't assume you would want the "religion" given at tech discovery. You could have emmigrants granted by goodie huts or upon the capture of barbarians.
You also wouldn't want to allow people to adopt state religions (all religion civics block state religions like free religion does now). Instead the dark or light setting controls the attitude differences.
Anyway, just ideas for you to consider.
You're kidding, right? 
