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I see your point, but my point is that there is no right and wrong outside of a human construction unless there is a God (as I believe Sklansky has already argued here several times), and I don't believe in God.

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You're getting into very debatable territory here, not with the God stuff but with your notion of rights theory.

Regardless:

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If we give animals rights, then we should hold them to the same standards we are held to in order that we have those rights.

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Francione (and others) pretty much demolish all variations on this claim. [See Chapter 5 of the book I commended above (PM me and I will send you a copy for free).] But in short, there are many humans (e.g., small children and the mentally or otherwise infirm) who are incapable of, and in fact, are not held to moral standards and yet are still accorded (correctly) the benefit of moral rights. Animals are no different. If we accord a baby newborn (let's assume a parentless one to avoid other objections) the basic right to life (which we do) even though it is unable (and may never be able) to reciprocate morally then we should accord the same basic right to a cat or other animal (I use cats because, well, I like them a lot) which also is likely unable to reciprocate.