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Well, here's my own personal clumsy explanation:
Rights are things that people should be allowed to keep/do. I should be allowed to keep my body in my possession - kidnapping is wrong. I should be allowed to speak - duct taping my mouth is wrong.
None but the most ardent anarchists believe that these rights should be absolute. You know the old cliche: your right to swing your fist ends at my face.
My own view tends to be - I don't know that I'm wholly consistent in this - that rights are only justly violated when the purpose of the violation is to protect equal or greater rights.
I don't think it matters whether they come from God, from nature, or from our own minds. No matter the source, rights are good things. We should respect rights. We should be hesitant to disregard them, even when our motives appear to be pure.
Rights are the second-person perspective on personal morals. My personal morality says "I shouldn't do this", my personal rights say, "You shouldn't prevent me from doing this."
Or something like that.
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I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.
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