John G. Lawrence, whose bedroom encounter with the police in Texas led to one of the gay rights movement’s signal triumphs, the Supreme Court’s 2003 decision in Lawrence v. Texas, died at his home in Houston on Nov. 20, his partner said on Friday. He was 68.

The cause was complications of a heart ailment, said his partner, Jose Garcia.

Aside from a posting on a funeral home’s Web site that did not mention the Supreme Court decision, Mr. Lawrence’s death apparently received no immediate publicity. It came to light when a lawyer in the case, Mitchell Katine, sought to reach Mr. Lawrence with an invitation to an event commemorating the ruling.

The Lawrence decision struck down a Texas law that made gay sex a crime and swept away sodomy laws in a dozen other states. The decision reversed a 17-year-old precedent, Bowers v. Hardwick, which had ruled that there was nothing in the Constitution to stop states from making it a crime for gay men to have consensual sex at home.

But Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for five justices in the 6-to-3 Lawrence decision, said, “The petitioners are entitled to respect for their private lives.”