IOWA CITY (AP) — Iowa Supreme Court Justice David Wiggins isn’t well known outside the legal community of his state, and even inside that group, isn’t particularly popular.

But the question of whether he should keep his job has become one of the most fiercely contested judicial issues on the Nov. 6 ballot because of what he symbolizes in the debate over gay marriage and the role of courts.

Three years ago, Wiggins and his six colleagues ruled that the state’s law banning gay marriage was unconstitutional, which made Iowa the third state to recognize same-sex unions and the first outside the coasts. The decision triggered a furor among conservatives, who mounted an aggressive campaign a year later to defeat three of the justices whose terms came up for ballot review.